Traffic Radio was a digital radio station based in England. It was a 24-hour rolling traffic and travel service for

motorways A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway and expressway. Other similar terms ...

and major roads in England, run for the

Highways Agency National Highways, formerly the Highways Agency and later Highways England, is a State-owned enterprise, government-owned company charged with operating, maintaining and improving Roads in England, motorways and major A roads in England. It al ...

Global Traffic Network Global Traffic Network is a traffic reporting service that provides reports to radio and television stations across Australia, Canada, Brazil and the United Kingdom. The company was formed in 2005 by principals from Westwood One and Metro Networks ...

. Traffic Radio could be heard on DAB digital radio, 1386 MW (

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...

only) and via the internet. It was available 24 hours a day, seven days a week and was updated every ten minutes during rush hour and every twenty minutes at other times. It offered regional traffic news, depending on which part of the country people were listening, as well as national headlines. The information came from the

National Traffic Control Centre National Highways, formerly the Highways Agency and later Highways England, is a government-owned company charged with operating, maintaining and improving motorways and major A roads in England. It also sets highways standards used by all f ...

, which has access to over 1,000 CCTV cameras and 3,750 road sensors, as well as information from the

's seven regional control centres. Traffic Radio was broadcast in six regional variants: This was a list of those variants and the DAB multiplexes on which they broadcast: *West & Southwest (code C0D1) - ''Bath and west Wiltshire, Bournemouth, Bristol and Bath, Cornwall, Exeter and Torbay, Plymouth, Swindon'' *South & East (code C1D1) - ''Cambridge, Kent, Norwich, Reading, Southend and Chelmsford, South Hampshire, Sussex Coast'' *Midlands (code C2D1) - ''Birmingham, Coventry, Leicester, Nottingham, Peterborough, Stoke-on-Trent, Wolverhampton, Shrewsbury, Telford'' *Yorkshire/Northeast (code C3D1) - ''Bradford and Huddersfield, Humberside, Leeds, South Yorkshire, Teesside, Tyneside'' *Northwest (code C4D1) - ''Central Lancashire, Liverpool, Manchester'' *London (code C5D1) - ''London'' (London took the South and East version before subsequently switching to its own dedicated version operated with the assistance of Transport for London) The station closed at 15:00 on 31 August 2011 after the project was axed following the government spending review. Barry Lewis was the last Southeast and London reporter, Simon Temby was the last North West reporter and Andrew Bassett the last North East reporter. The Highways Agency advertised an opportunity to license the Traffic Radio brand and operate a similar service at no cost to the taxpayer. Expressions of interest were received, but no company was prepared to take this forward.

References

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External links

Traffic Radio

Highways Agency website
Digital-only radio stations Radio stations in England News and talk radio stations in the United Kingdom Former British radio networks Road transport in England Internet radio stations in the United Kingdom