MPs have told the Government it needs to prove that all-lane running schemes do not present road safety risks before proceeding with current plans.

A report by the Transport Select Committee has slammed the Government’s current schemes to permanently convert the hard shoulder into a running lane on around 300 miles of motorway and says that motorway hard shoulders shouldn’t be used as permanent driving lanes.

Chair of the Transport Select Committee, Louise Ellman MP, commented: “The permanent removal of the hard shoulder is a dramatic change. All kinds of drivers, including the emergency services, are genuinely concerned about the risk this presents.

“It is undeniable that we need to find ways of dealing with traffic growth on the strategic network. But All Lane Running does not appear to us to be the safe, incremental change the Department wants us to think it is. While ‘smart motorways’ have existed for years, this is fundamentally different. Government needs to demonstrate that All Lane Running schemes do not make the road any less safe that the traditional motorway with a hard shoulder.”

She added that the Committee had been told of significant concerns about the scarcity, size and misuse of emergency refuge areas and also about worryingly high levels of non-compliance with Red X signals.

Ms Ellman also said that the dynamic hard shoulder running scheme on the M42 – which only opens the hard shoulder as a running lane to traffic at busy periods has a track record of safety and performance but added that subsequent versions have gradually lowered the standard specification.

She concluded: “Government needs to demonstrate considerable improvement in this area, including more emergency refuge areas, driver education and enforcement, before the Committee will endorse the extension of a scheme which risks putting motorists in harm’s way.”

The RAC – which gave evidence to the Transport Committee as part of its inquiry – welcomed the report, also expressing its concerns over permanent all-lane running schemes.

RAC chief engineer David Bizley said: “Whilst supporting smart motorways as a cost effective and relatively rapid way of increasing motorway capacity, the RAC has repeatedly expressed concerns about the latest design which turns the hard shoulder on motorways into a permanent running lane. These concerns are widely shared by other industry groups, as well as by our members and others who regularly use motorways.

“We therefore welcome the Select Committee report and are pleased that this influential group of MPs has concluded that the decision to adopt ‘all lane running’ on all future smart motorways may be premature. The safety of motorists must come first and therefore new designs need to be trialled for sufficiently long to demonstrate their safety before they are introduced more widely. This was precisely the approach adopted by the Highways Agency (now Highways England) when a smart motorway with a dynamic hard shoulder was first introduced on the M42.

“The message to Government and to Highways England is clear – we should apply the principles that have proven to be safe on smart motorways such as the M42 until such time as the evidence exists to show all lane running is as safe as conventional motorways with a hard shoulder, and as smart motorways with a dynamic hard shoulder which only open to traffic as a running lane when the extra capacity is needed.”