Nails, spanners, wheel nuts, scaffold clips and money has been retrieved by the magnet , the equivalent weight of two saloon cars. The road sweeper has been used daily and has travelled more than 32,000 kilometres on the hard shoulders of motorways and trunk roads and is now mainly used on the M4.

The 18-tonne road sweeper vehicle, supplied by Balfour Beatty Infrastructure Services, is equipped with a bar magnet which picks up nails and other metal objects, reducing the risk of tyre damage. The road sweeper is also equipped with a high-powered brush, high pressure washing system and nozzle and acts as a litter picker, road sweeper and gully cleaner.

Angela Koenig, Highways Agency area manager for traffic operations in the south east said: "The large bar magnet makes this an extremely useful machine which is helping us to improve safety for road users.  The road sweeper completes four actions in one, sweeping, litter picking, cleaning gullies and picking up metal objects."