Traffic officers will help police during jams and accidents

Patrol officers will be coordinated by operators at a new control centre at South Mimms, Hertfordshire.

Officers will begin working in Essex on the M25, Europe's busiest motorway, at the end of October.

Over the next year patrols will extend into Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire.

By the summer of 2006 officers will operate from seven outstations across the region.

The service in the east will start with 85 staff - 55 patrolling junctions 25 to 31 of the M25 and junctions four to nine of the M11 supported by 30 control room staff.

Once fully operational about 300 people will be working for the Highways Agency based at the South Mimms control centre.

The Traffic Officer Service is already up and running in the Midlands and began patrolling the M25 in Surrey earlier this month.