RAISE: Tackling Abuse and Incursion Risk for Road Workers

Every day, road workers across the UK put themselves on the line to keep our highways safe and moving. Too often they face abuse, intimidation, or dangerous incursions into live work zones simply for doing their job. These incidents are widely under-reported, leaving a gap in the data that the industry needs, to understand the true scale of the problem and push for meaningful change.

The Traffic Management Contractors Association (TMCA) is supporting RAISE (Roadworker Abuse and Incursion Safety Exchange), a platform designed to close that gap, not by replacing the reporting systems organisations already have internally, but by sitting outside of them. RAISE is a national database, independent of any one company, that brings these incidents together at an industry level. This kind of cross-organisational, sector-wide data simply hasn’t existed before, and it’s exactly that gap RAISE is built to fill.

A live, interactive heat map

At the heart of RAISE is a live heat map of reported incidents, colour-coded by type, with the date, time, and brief details of what happened. No company names or other identifying details are included, the focus is on the incident itself, not who it happened to. Users can search by postcode, then drag and zoom around the map to explore an area in detail.

This gives organisations a practical, visual way to understand what’s been happening in a given area before they deploy a crew, informing decisions about staffing, signage, barriers, or other safety measures before work even begins, rather than reacting after an incident occurs.

Where things stand

RAISE has been under active development over recent months, building out the reporting form and heat map, alongside engaging directly with the sector to understand the barriers that stop operatives reporting incidents in the first place, work that’s shaping how the platform continues to evolve.

We’ve also been growing the stakeholder network behind RAISE, speaking with contacts across the traffic management and highways community, including operators, highways authorities, and industry bodies.

Why this matters at an industry level

Internal reporting systems are essential, but they’re siloed by design, each organisation only sees its own picture. RAISE aggregates that picture across companies, contracts, and regions, giving the sector a true national view of where and how often abuse and incursions are happening. That’s the evidence base needed to support stronger protection measures and influence change at an industry level, not just within individual companies.

No single company can solve this problem alone. It requires an industry-led approach. And because the data sits at a national level, a lesson learned from an incident in one location can help protect a worker somewhere else entirely.

Get involved

RAISE is open to any organisation working on the road network; contractors, subcontractors, utilities, and highways authorities. To protect data validity, reports must come from the organisation rather than directly from operatives on site. Because RAISE only works if it reflects the whole industry, we’re actively looking for stakeholders to help shape it, whether that’s input on the platform, insight into reporting barriers in your organisation, or simply a conversation about what you’d want from a national platform like this.

If you’d like to get involved, share your experience, or just find out more, please get in touch at raise@raisetm.co.uk.

(Image – TMCA)