Permanent and experimental traffic regulation orders

A Traffic Regulation Order (TRO) is a legal document that must be made by the Local Authority under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 in order to regulate or restrict the public highway in any way.

A Traffic Regulation Order can restrict the use of the public highway in many ways, either permanently, experimentally or temporarily. The most common ways are:

• closing the road
• speed restrictions
• weight/width/height restrictions
• prohibiting certain movements
• restricting parking in some way

There are strict procedures that we must follow in order to make a temporary, permanent or experimental Traffic Regulation Order.

Temporary orders

You can find information on temporary Traffic Regulation Orders on our 'apply for a temporary road closure' page.

Permanent orders

We will propose a permanent Traffic Regulation Order or change to an existing Traffic Regulation Order when it becomes necessary for road safety, because of the conditions on the highway or driver behaviour (this can be done by either a permanent or experimental order).

All permanent Traffic Regulation Orders must:

• be concise:
  • we must put forward a clear and concise proposal, including what exactly is being proposed, where and why - this will be in the form of both a worded statement of reasons and a visual drawing or plan showing the extent of the proposed changes
• go through public consultation:
  • every Traffic Regulation Order is subject to a 21-day public consultation - this is where we invite members of the public and interested organisations to review the proposal documents and comment on them
  • comments can be in support of or object to the changes we propose to make
  • all of our consultations are published on our consultation hub where you can also view past consultations (individual comments are not published)
• be advertised locally:
  • we must advertise our intent to make a Traffic Regulation Order in the local paper - either the Newbury Weekly News or the Reading Chronicle
  • the advert must outline what is being proposed, where readers can find further information and how (and when) they can make comments

Once the public consultation has closed, we will collate and review all of the responses. If we receive significant objections, we will write a report outlining the scheme to date, summarising all of the responses for the Individual Member to consider and decide the best way forward. 

If no significant objections are received (or it's decided to proceed with the proposals), we will arrange for the works to take place to coincide with the date the legal order comes into force.

This process can take more than 12 months, or even longer for parking amendments. Often, smaller tweaks will be grouped together into larger schemes. Requests for permanent changes to speed limits have to be approved by our Speed Limit Task Group before they can begin the Traffic Regulation Order process.

You can find further information on how we set speed limits on our speed management page.

Experimental orders

Experimental Traffic Regulation Orders (ETRO) aren't as common as permanent orders. Experimental orders will go through the same process as above, just in a different order.

For an Experimental Traffic Regulation Order, the legal order is advertised, made and brought into force to coincide with the restrictions being implemented on site straight away.

An Experimental Traffic Regulation Order can only be in force for up to 18 months. The first six months should be used for the public to comment on how the scheme is working, or not. The local authority then has the following 12 months to review all of the comments and decide how to proceed. If the public support outweighs the objections during the consultation, we will make a permanent order.

The benefit of an Experimental Traffic Regulation Order is that it gives the community the opportunity to experience the proposed restrictions rather than asking them to comment on something that is theoretical.