After years of debates and inquiries the government have announced they will be cancelling all future plans for Smart Motorways. This is something many people have been calling for, as Smart Motorways are seen as dangerous and encouraging of car use. However others have pointed to evidence that shows Smart Motorways are safer per mile than traditional motorways and have advocated for them despite the continuously negative narrative they seem to gain.
Join other savvy professionals just like you at CIHT. We are committed to fulfilling your professional development needs throughout your career
On 15 April it was announced that all new smart motorways – including the 11 already paused from the second Road Investment Strategy (2020 to 2025) and the 3 earmarked for construction during the third Road Investment Strategy (2025 to 2030) – will be removed from government road-building plans, due to financial pressures and the current lack of public confidence felt by drivers.
Smart motorways have always been a polarising topic. Within the CIHT membership body and the wider transport sector, safety concerns and increasing road capacity are constantly at the forefront of debates.
We recently posed the question 'is the UK government right or wrong to scrap all new smart motorways?' through our social media networks, which saw 61% of respondents believing that is was the right decision.
The biggest safety concern for many when it comes to Smart Motorways is the use of the hard shoulder for vehicles to travel in. Whether this is via ‘Dynamic Hard Shoulders’ where the hard shoulder opens to traffic during busy times to add capacity, or, through ‘All Lane Running’ that allows the hard shoulder to be used full-time as an additional lane with emergency refuges installed intermittently to provide protection.
Without a hard shoulder many road users feel vulnerable, with one CIHT member commenting that they ‘count the seconds from one refuge to the next to try and reassure myself that they are regular enough’.
However, despite this being a feeling shared by many, evidence suggests that the absence of hard shoulders might not influence fatalities as much as we may think.
Kate Carpenter, CIHT Fellow and Director of Operational Road Safety at Jacobs Engineering presented evidence on behalf of CIHT to the Transport Select Committee’s inquiry into Smart Motorways two years ago. Kate’s evidence referenced the first Smart Motorway Stocktake document showing that fatal crashes and live lane fatal crashes are lower per mile travelled on all forms of Smart Motorways (Controlled Motorway; Dynamic Hard Shoulder; All Lane Running) than conventional motorways with hard shoulders.
Speaking on the announcement today, Kate Carpenter stated that ‘the public concern is mainly around stopped vehicles, but these are a very small proportion of all collisions (the proportion ranges from 2.36% for controlled motorways to 2.99% for conventional motorways to 5.26% for All Lane Running motorways) (Source: Smart Motorways Stocktake Second Year). However, they have dominated the narrative because the profession/DfT/National Highways/government ministers have failed to communicate to the public before implementation what was being done and why.’
As part of National Highways’ previous work to provide more information to drivers, they rolled out a ‘Driving on Motorways Campaign’, which focused on increasing public confidence in the safety of Smart Motorways and helped to ensure drivers know the steps they need to take if they break down on a Smart Motorway. However, even these attempts saw backlash from the public with one person on Twitter replying to a National Highways video that ‘the fact that National Highways have to post instructional videos only goes to show that they know smart motorways are highly dangerous.’
Aside from safety issues, the second biggest debate surrounding Smart Motorways is the fact that opening up the hard shoulder increases road capacity. Some people see this as a good thing as (in theory) it should relieve stress on local roads and other parts of the senior road network.
However, there are also those that believe we should be halting any schemes that increase road use altogether, as was seen earlier this year when Wales announced a break on road building. When it comes to Smart Motorways some CIHT members have described the schemes as ‘increasing capacity on the cheap’ with one member saying ‘as an industry we have a responsibility to future generations to reduce the need to travel by road and ensure that our existing infrastructure can function more efficiently and effectively. Trying to increase highway capacity, either by explicit widening or stealth removal of hard shoulders flies in the face of the science and prevailing policy.’
The issue of increasing capacity on Smart Motorways was also discussed by David Metz, honorary professor at UCL Centre for Transport Studies last year at Highways UK. In his talk ‘Headwinds to RIS3 - digital navigation to make the network more efficient’ he presented a particular stretch of Smart Motorway (between junction 10 and 13 of the M1), where five years after it was installed traffic was moving slower than before the new capacity of the Smart Motorway was created.
He believed that this was because digital navigation systems (such as satnavs, waze, etc.,) were acknowledging the increased capacity of the Smart Motorway and were diverting local traffic onto them. This then meant that the strategic road network came under stress in highly populated areas as local road users were competing with long-distance journey makers.
It is important to note that whilst new Smart Motorway schemes have been cancelled, existing ones will remain in place and the M56 J6-8 and M6 J21a-26 Smart Motorways will be completed given they are already over three quarters constructed. It was also announced that the government and National Highways will continue to invest £900 million in further safety improvements on existing Smart Motorways, including adding 150 extra emergency areas across the network. National Highways is also committed to continuing the thorough evaluation and publishing the findings of the safety performance of all existing schemes
We must also remember that the current concerns people have regarding Smart Motorways won’t disappear just because new ones aren’t being built.
Road safety will be as important, if not more important now there will be fewer Smart Motorways. As evidence suggests, more fatalities happen per mile travelled on traditional motorways than Smart Motorways, so people may feel safer now – but will this be reflected in the number of accidents recorded going forward?
Congestion and the question of whether to build new roads won’t disappear either. The transport industry is currently facing ambitious targets to reach Net Zero by 2050, against a backdrop of high inflation, supply chain issues, soaring energy costs, difficulties in delivering existing investment programmes and uncertainty about the future levels of demand.
We must ask ourselves, was it the right decision to scrap new Smart Motorways? CIHT Members can have their say here.
Join other savvy professionals just like you at CIHT. We are committed to fulfilling your professional development needs throughout your career
{{item.AuthorName}} {{item.AuthorName}} says on {{item.DateFormattedString}}: