Councils publish roads information via web platform during floods

Local authorities were able to respond to the flooding crisis by publishing emergency closures and diversions instantly on a national platform for the first time. 

Stoke on Trent became the first City Council to tweet out their diversion routes while Somerset County Council responded to the flooding crisis in the Somerset Levels by publishing their road closures on the web.

The traffic management app provided by Elgin gives councils the opportunity to communicate local road closures and diversions – live and instantly to the web and via Twitter.

Other areas that used the service during the flooding included Wokingham and the Isle of Wight.

Dorset, Devon, East Sussex and Surrey have also joined the increasing number of local authorities who are publishing their diversion routes live on to the web.

Elgin chairman Shane O'Neill said: "There has never before existed a national platform which integrates and publishes local roads closures and diversions. It is fantastic that so many local highway authorities are responding to the flooding and utilising the new Traffic Management App to communicate their diversions routes instantly to emergency services and the general public."

The Society of Information Technology Management (SOCITM) is publishing its annual review of public sector websites next week.

It has a special focus on roadworks and transport information and key findings include:

• 91% of the public find information satisfactorily through search engines (primarily Google)



• roadworks.org (a traffic data platform provided by Elgin) is acknowledged as the national roadworks portal and is the number one search term for roadworks in Google



• SOCITM's lowest satisfaction rating (14%) is for finding out any information about closures and diversions – something that Elgin is looking to address with the launch of its traffic management app.