Last year the national Customer Contact Centre (CCC), which has recently been awarded an industry accolade, dealt with over 298,000 calls, 68,000 emails and 133,754 other correspondence such as letters as staff worked around the clock, 365 days of the year.
As well as managing 4,300 miles of motorways and major A roads across England, Highways England offers information and assistance for the four million road users who use the network every day.
If members of the public have to ring Highways England, the first contact is usually with the CCC based at the National Traffic Operations Centre in Quinton, near Birmingham. Advisors offer support on a diverse range of topics; from journey planning and real-time traffic queries, to emergency response and, very often, problem solving.
These problems have varied from such dilemmas as a mum desperate to get her lost son home, a confused pensioner trying to get his toenails cut to helping a Bulgarian lady who had broken down but spoke very little English - and was rescued by traffic officers with the aid of Google Translate.
The summer can be particularly busy for the centre as new figures released by Highways England have shown that more than 48,500 motorway breakdowns happened between the final week of June and the first weekend of September last year.
Highways England is expecting to respond to an extra 700 breakdowns a week over the 10 weeks this year and we are reaching the peak period.
The first weekend in August was the busiest weekend for breakdowns on England's motorways in 2018 shortly followed by the final weekend in July, with one breakdown reported every two minutes as drivers set off on day trips and holidays.
Highways England is running a new safety campaign encouraging drivers to remember the basics of motorway driving, including what to do if you break down. Adverts on radio, billboards and online are reminding drivers of simple driving rules to keep everyone moving.
In recognition of the dedication of staff and its customer service excellence, the CCC has now received a Silver Global Standard Award from the industry-recognised Contact Centre Association.
It was presented with the award for consistently achieving accreditation to the CCA Global Standard over 10 years. This is an independent assessment and endorsement of an organisation's customer service operation, designed by industry experts.
Highways England Customer Service Director Melanie Clarke said:
