The roll-out of all-lane running style smart motorways should be put on hold until risks are addressed and more safety data is available, MPs have said.

The report says all-lane running type smart motorways should never have been rolled out without work on safety concerns

A damning new report from the Transport Select Committee says such motorways should never have been rolled out without work on safety concerns and that the Department for Transport and National Highways (previously Highways England) have failed to deliver on promises to implement safety improvements.

According to MPs, the government decision in March 2020 for all new smart motorways to use the ‘all-lane running’ (ALR) format, rather than the earlier ‘dynamic’ system of activating the hard shoulder at busy times, was “premature” and that data on the safety and economic performance of existing ALR schemes was insufficient to reach that judgment.

Instead, they say the Government should stop constructing ALR schemes until five years of safety and economic data is available and safety improvements have been delivered and independently evaluated.

While the committee said that smart motorways do appear to be safer than conventional motorways, even once the hard shoulder is permanently removed on ALR schemes, it added that the available data was “limited and volatile”. Only 29 miles of all-lane running smart motorways have operated for over five years.

The report echoes comments made by the Office of Road and Rail (ORR) in its probe of the Government’s smart motorway analysis in September 2021; the ORR found that there had been no errors in government calculations but said data was too limited.

MPs on the Transport Select Committee also said that work to communicate this radical change to motorway design had been “woeful” – more than half of drivers are still unclear on what to do if they break down in a live lane.

And they pointed out that promises to prioritise improvements had been broken. In 2016, the Committee was told that stopped vehicle technology – which cuts the average time taken for National Highways to identify and close a blocked lane to one minute – would be introduced for all new smart motorways “going forward” and retrofitted for existing stretches but this is still work in progress.

Meanwhile, the measures identified in the 18-point action plan two years ago as a result of the DfT’s review do not fully address the risks associated with the removal of the hard shoulder.

Instead, the Transport Select Committee has called on the Department for Transport and National Highways to take action, including ramping up work on retrofitting emergency refuge areas (ERAs) to existing all-lane running smart motorways, and to task the Office of Rail and Road with evaluating the DfT’s progress, particularly response times for live lane breakdowns and educating drivers on the correct action to take.

Pointing to comments made by the DfT earlier this year on new safety measures, Huw Merriman, chair of the Transport Committee, said: “The Government is right to focus on upgrading the safety of all-lane running motorways, but we’ve been here before. We’re not convinced that reinstating the hard shoulder on existing schemes is the answer, but the DfT must pause the roll-out and take stock.

“Only when these safety measures have been brought in, when enough time has been afforded to assess the safety of smart motorways over a longer period and when the Office of Rail and Road, as the independent road safety regulator, have been given powers to evaluate it, should we move to roll out more miles of smart motorway.”

The report also calls on the DfT to set out the business case for controlled motorways, which have a permanent hard shoulder with technology to regulate the speed and flow of traffic, compared with all-lane running motorways.

The reaction:

The AA, which has long expressed its concerns over ALR schemes, said the report represented “pragmatic progress”.

Edmund King, AA president, said: “We have campaigned consistently for ERAs at least every three quarters of mile and have been pushing for a rapid retrofit programme. The Committee also takes up our proposal for all lane running schemes to revert to the hard-shoulder between 7pm-7am to avoid confusion and to offer a refuge to counter live lane collisions that happen at night.

“We also called for better evaluation of the stopped vehicle detection technology and questioned why it hadn’t been fitted before schemes opened. The report reflects our view that controlled motorways with a hard shoulder are the safest option and that the business case for these should be examined.”

The RAC also said welcomed the report as it highlighted how ALR schemes remain deeply unpopular with drivers.

Head of roads policy Nicholas Lyes said: “By the Committee calling for the roll-out of all lane running smart motorways schemes to be paused, the Government would have time to evaluate a more complete set of safety data. The Committee’s call to retrofit existing smart motorways with more refuge areas would also make these stretches of road safer than they are today, something we’ve long called for. But whether these and other actions are enough to convince drivers of the merits of all lane running remains to be seen.

“We’re pleased to see the Committee has taken a different view over the Government’s plans to scrap dynamic hard shoulder schemes. We continue to believe that these schemes could in fact be made the new standard as they still offer somewhere to stop away from live traffic in the event of a breakdown during quieter times, while still accommodating more traffic at busier times. They have also demonstrated very good levels of safety.

“We feel a huge question mark remains over whether it’s right that yet more money is spent on rolling out further all lane running smart motorways when there are clearly viable alternatives available. We’d like to see the Government take a second look at the benefits of dynamic hard shoulder schemes as a matter of urgency.”