DETAILS of an accelerated £1.5 billion improvement programme for England's 6,500 miles of motorways and trunk roads were revealed to fleet operators and transport managers at this year's Fleet Show. The Highways Agency's stand was at the NEC event to answer inquiries from visitors who had heard Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown's March Budget promise to improve the road network.

At the start of the year there were 46 schemes in progress, but additional Government funding means another 41 are to be carried out over the next five years as part of Targeted Programmes of Improvement (TPIs). The current TPI includes work on the M2, M60, A13 East London and the Birmingham relief road. Next year there are to be bypass and dual carriageway schemes at 13 hotspots, followed by nine similar relief developments in 2001/2.

M25 widening between J12-15, at a cost of £94 million, starts in the 2002 financial year as does the £125 million A303 Stonehenge scheme and widening of the M60/M63 and stretches of the A1M.