General missions

In accordance with article 3 of the Law on the integrated police, the federal police carry out the specialized and supralocal missions of administrative and judicial police, as well as support missions for local police services and police authorities, on the whole territory, taking into account the principles of speciality and subsidiarity. In this context, the Traffic Police are responsible for:

The police function on motorways and similar roads, among other things by:

• First and foremost, being responsible for road traffic policing and free traffic (art. 16 Law on the police function). This mission inlcudes among other things traffic surveillance, recording accidents, traffic regulation, assistance to road users, traffic education and traffic information;
• Contributing to the maintenance of public order in the broad sense, by exercising general supervision and conducting the necessary checks at events (demonstrations on motorways, sporting events, football), during escorts (Royal escort, VIP), bicycle races, exceptional transports or emergency planning;
• Taking part in judicial police missions (art. 15 Law on the police function) within the framework of the circular letter of the Minister of Justice (Col 2/2002) of 20 February 2002. This circular regulates the division of tasks, the cooperation, coordination and integration between the local and federal police with regard to judicial police tasks and without prejudice to the tasks within the federal police that were assigned to the decentralized judicial services and to the Traffic Police. This task includes in particular taking the first measures when recording criminal offences;
• Putting action plans that have a federal priority into effect on the motorway network (participation in integrated police actions, conducting oriented checks, etc.).

Support functions for the local police that are part of:

• In particular, the framework of measures that are aimed at reinforcing the policy of checks on regional roads (providing special equipment like radar systems, weighbridges, etc.) or the sensitization of road users to the problem of road safety (providing a crash simulator, road safety track, etc.), or
• if necessary, the implementation of road traffic policing on some regional roads.

Cooperating with:

• the administrative and judicial authorities,
• other integrated police services and directorates,
• the foreign police services,
• the federal public services,
• the road maintenance authorities,
• and the Belgian Institute for Road Safety.