A RADICAL alternative to Operation Stack that allows just two people to install a moveable barrier while traffic keeps moving along the motorway could bring an end to frustrating delays for thousands of motorists.

Kent Police and the Highways Agency are examining the potential for adapting a revolutionary system used in Italy to ease the flow of holiday traffic from Tuscany to Meditarranean resorts.

The solution involves “unzipping” a barrier from a customised truck to put in place a contra-flow system far more quickly than the two-days needed when Kent Police tried a similar approach along the M20 at Easter. The Italian system has the added advantage of not needing a buffer zone to separate traffic and would allow for two lanes of traffic to travel in each direction.

Police chiefs from Kent have already travelled to Italy to see at first hand how their counterparts use the system and say it is a “promising” option.

The authorities in Italy use the barrier primarily along the Pesio Bridge in the Piedmont region, a notorious bottleneck where delays are commonplace due to extensive construction work and the high volume of people travelling to the coast at weekends.

More lanes are open to traffic travelling south at the start of the weekend and the contra-flow reversed at the end of the weekend or national holidays.

While the barrier could require a major capital investment, the savings over the long term could prove substantial and reduce the cumulative costs to the police and the detrimental impact on local businesses when traffic is diverted.

Assistant chief constable Dave Ainsworth of Kent Police said: “We need a safe system that can be set up and dismantled quickly and will reduce the number of people required for its operation. The moveable barrier is promising and a full evaluation of costs is being completed.”

Meanwhile, it has emerged that implementing the experimental contra-flow system on the M20 at Easter cost the Highways Agency more than £300,000.

Even though the contra-flow system was actually in place for just 11 hours, government contractors working for the Highways Agency say it cost them £308,000 of taxpayers’ money to put in place some 4,000 traffic cones, install speed limit signs, speed cameras and put in temporary lines along a 17 kilometre stretch of the carriageway.

The costs of the contra-flow experiment have been disclosed to the Kent Messenger Group under the Freedom of Information Act.

It follows our revelation that the costs to Kent Police of activating and patrolling Operation Stack in overtime costs has soared this year to £123,000.

Other documentation disclosed by the Highways Agency indicates that officials did not regard the experiment with the contra-flow system as a success.

It says motorists used the buffer lane between the two carriageways to overtake vehicles that had broken down and in some cases, used it to do U-turns.

In one incident, a coach carrying a group of pensioners broke down and the driver led passengers across the 'live’ motorway.