Emergency exercise aims to boost safety on M62
WORKERS from Widnes took part in one of the biggest ever motorway emergency exercises on the M62 last month to help improve responses to major road incidents.
Around 100 workers from Greater Manchester and Cheshire’s emergency services worked with Highways England’s traffic officers through the night, to respond to a staged multiple-casualty incident involving an overturned coach, two HGVs, eight cars and a motorbike.
Exercise Dark Knight took place when the motorway was already due to be closed as part of a major upgrade to add extra lanes and new technology to a nine-mile section of the M62 near Warrington between junctions 10 to 12.
While Highways England contractors worked on installing new gantry bases and changed the temporary road layout near junction 10 at the Eccles Interchange, around 50 volunteers took on the role of injured drivers and passengers to help bring the staged incident to life at the other end of the major road scheme.
The glass windows, fuel and other liquids were removed from a 57-seater coach before it was towed onto the motorway and moved onto its side by workers at Hough Green Garage in Widnes, using a mobile crane.
A car transporter was also used to get the cars and motorbike into place for the exercise.
Chris Chadwick, North West resilience co-ordinator at Highways England, said: “Our motorways are among the safest in the world and we help to keep them safe by carefully planning what we’d do on the rare occasions when there’s a major incident.
“We normally have to do this away from the motorway to avoid disruption to drivers but will be able to make our latest scenario as realistic as possible by carrying out Exercise Dark Knight on the M62 when it’s already closed overnight for major construction work. We’re working closely with the emergency services on the exercise and are grateful to the volunteers who are giving up their time to help make our motorways safer for everyone.”
The stretch of the M62 between the M6 and the M60 is used by around 120,000 vehicles every day.
More than 350 people are working on the latest stage of the project which involves major construction work at the side of the motorway to install new giant overhead gantries, CCTV masts, safety barriers and lighting columns.
Jason Rain, operational training delivery manager at Greater Manchester Fire And Rescue Service, said: “This exercise is a good opportunity for our crews to carry out imperative training for a major road traffic collision working collaborative with partner agencies.
“The fire service carries out a variety of training exercises on a regular basis to ensure that our firefighters have the most up-to-date training and can work efficiently with other emergency services to achieve the best possible results.”