The East of England, along with the East Midlands, North West and Central Southern England (Hampshire), are the first regions to have the new orange vehicles, which have state of the art monitoring technology on board. Their introduction marks the Highways Agency's move towards use of pre-wet salt, which gets to work faster on the road surface to prevent ice formation and is more friendly to vehicles and the environment because less is used.

The first of the new winter service vehicles will be on the roads this Autumn and the total new fleet of 438 vehicles will be in use across most of England's strategic roads by 2010. The first of this year's 159 vehicles were launched today (Monday 10 November), at a depot serving the A1 at Sandy in Bedfordshire.

Pre-wet salt, widely used across Europe including parts of the UK, is a new addition to the Agency's winter service this year. The new fleet also has the latest technology on board including GPS and data logging systems that give real time information on record which roads are being treated and how much salt has been used.

Martin Hobbs, Winter Service Delivery Manager for the Highways Agency, said:

"We're replacing our existing fleet of yellow vehicles over the next four years because they are approaching the end of their economic life. The new orange fleet will bring important benefits for road users and the environment - helping to keep roads safe, whilst cutting costs and pollution with less waste and 'greener' engines.

"Using pre-wetted salt (which speeds up the action of the salt to prevent the build up of snow and ice formation), we will achieve a greater level of accuracy - thereby allowing us to use less salt. And as the pre-wet salts sticks to the road surface you also reduce the "bounce off" effect. All these improvements mean we will reduce our impact on the environment, on our road structures and surfaces, as well as road users' vehicles."