The numbers of dedicated traffic police officers are not collected centrally. The available data are the number of full time equivalent police officers primarily employed in the function “traffic”.
The available data are given in the table.
England and Wales 1996-973 — 1997-983 — 1998-99 7,525 1999-2000 7,238 2000-01 7,005 2002-03 6,902 2003-04 6,706 2004-05 7,104 2005-06 6,511 1 This and other tables contain full-time equivalent figures that have been rounded to the nearest whole number. Because of rounding, there may be an apparent discrepancy between totals and the sums of the constituent items. 2 Staff with multiple responsibilities (or designations) are recorded under their primary role or function. The traffic function includes staff who are predominantly employed on motorcycles or in patrol vehicles for the policing of traffic and motorway related duties. This does not include officers employed in accident investigation, vehicle examination and radar duties. 3 Data are not available for 1996-97 and 1997-98.