Case Study: Operation Tramline
continued...
Evaluation
In the case of Tramline, we would ideally like to know if mobile usage reduced during the operation, and if it was
sustained afterwards. Otherwise we only demonstrate that surveillance works whilst it is present, and we can’t
know if drivers were just ‘on to us’ and stopped using whilst they thought they might get caught. If the effect is
sustained after the operation we know that we’ve had some lasting deterrent effect, perhaps by changing a few
attitudes to the law, by making people believe that getting caught is actually a possibility, or by encouraging a
few employers to take distracted driving more seriously. To get these sorts of answers we need to make sure
that the way we measure usage before, during and after the operation is not based on the observations of the
officers in the HGV themselves. Highways England require forces to submit incident data for the Tramline routes
before, during and after the cabs have been used, and this is potentially useful information.
Tramline is a local approach that targets people that travel nationally or even internationally. We shouldn’t
expect (or want) our activities to only affect the area where we operate. We want the message to travel with
our targets, but we can never prove that a distraction-related crash was avoided in Cumbria because we
ran an operation in Surrey. In this sense, we have to hope for an effect that we perhaps cannot measure, but
be satisfied with that. If we base our activities on sound research and evidence, we can at least have some
confidence that we are not making things worse, even if we cannot conclusively prove that we saved X
amount of lives. With nearly 9,000 offences captured to date by Tramline we might hope that the approach has
prevented incidents and that drivers are at least more wary of using their phones while driving because they
know there is a chance that they will be seen.
Another form of measure that we could use is related to engagement with employers that we mentioned earlier
(and see p47-56). The numbers of companies who were approached about their policies relating to distracted
driving, or who changed their policies, or who joined the Van Excellence or Driving for Better Business schemes is
another way of demonstrating an effect. Given what we have said about leverage, this is actually a claim that we
should look to be making - it may well have more impact on drivers than a ticket or a roadside chat as it comes
Evaluating enforcement operations by how many people are stopped and receive disposals is problematic.
Operations that use a ‘spotter’ and an ‘interceptor’ can only deal with as many drivers as they have
interceptors available at any one time, regardless of how many offenders are spotted. So if officers got
quicker at dealing with drivers over the duration of the operation then it may look like the problem has
worsened, when the opposite (or neither!) may be the case.
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