Devon highways staff in 24-hour Twitter challenge

Highways workers in Devon are set to reveal more about their day-to-day work as they take part in a 24-hour Twitter marathon.

Staff from South West Highways and Devon County Council’s Highways department will be taking to Twitter for 24 hours from 7am on Monday, September 10.

The exercise is a trial by the council to inform residents about issues on the roads.

Staff will be posting messages and photographs on the social networking site as they go about their day, with tweets set to report on incidents such as car crashes, traffic updates, engineering work and daily tasks undertaken by highways workers.

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Councillor Stuart Hughes said: “This is not a gimmick or about blowing our own trumpet.

“Although we hope people will enjoy hearing about what the Council Highways team gets up to on an average day, there is a very serious purpose behind this exercise.

“More and more people now have a mobile phone with internet access and regularly use social media as a means of instant communication.

“We believe social media could be a really useful way of communicating during a future emergency situation to help keep people well informed and give important safety advice in real time.

“It’s clear from incidents such as the recent floods that affected some of our local communities so badly how valuable this channel could be to reach people quickly with accurate and trusted information.

“By doing this exercise we hope to learn some vital lessons about how we can make the best use of social media to improve the way we engage and communicate with the public.”

You can follow the live trial by following their official account on Twitter: @DevonRoads or by searching #devoninaday.