Smart motorways: MPs call for roll-out to be stopped on safety grounds

The Government should pause the roll out of all-lane running smart motorways until more data is available and safety improvements have been made, MPs say. 

All-lane running smart motorways - where the hard shoulder is converted into a permanent live lane - were introduced in 2014 to improve traffic flow and ease congestion but they have been criticised by safety campaigners, following a number of fatalities. 

A new report by the Transport Select Committee is now calling the Government’s decision to roll out all-lane running smart motorways “premature”.

It claims that the 18-point action plan the Government introduced last year does not fully address the risks associated with the removal of the hard shoulder and that promises to prioritise improvements have been "broken".

The Committee wants the Department for Transport and National Highways (formerly Highways England) to pause the roll-out of all-lane running smart motorways until five years of safety data is available.

Huw Merriman MP, chair of the Transport Committee, said: “The Minister for Roads described England’s all-lane-running smart motorways as ‘the most scrutinised 141 miles of road in the world’.

"It is right we do so because lives have been lost and many motorists feel unsafe using them. More action is needed to demonstrate their worth.

“Looking at the available evidence, smart motorways do appear to be safer than conventional motorways even once the hard-shoulder is removed.

"However, this evidence is also open to question. Only 29 miles of these all-lane running smart motorways have operated for over five years.

"It therefore feels too soon, and uncertain, to use this as an evidence base to remove the hard shoulder from swathes of our motorway network."

Merriman added that the other forms of smart motorways, where the hard shoulder is converted to a live lane at peak times of congestion, have lower casualty rates than removing the hard shoulder altogether.

"Despite this, the Government intends to replace these with all-lane running schemes," he said. 

“Some 40 per cent of breakdowns on all-lane-running motorways take place in live lanes. This is too high.

"With stopped vehicle technology in place, it takes National Highways an average of one minute to close the lane.

"In 2016, our committee was told that this safety technology would be introduced for all new smart motorways ‘going forward’ and retrofitted for existing stretches.

"The former chief executive of National Highways told us in 2019 that a number of lives would have been saved had the technology been in place sooner.

"To be told that this technology is being delivered 12 months early, by 2022, is an extraordinary claim given it is now five years late.

“The Secretary of State for Transport and the Roads Minister have brought more urgency into this exercise. This action is welcome. 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 rollout and take stock.

Responding to the new report, a DfT spokesperson said: “We welcome the Transport Committee’s scrutiny and will now consider its recommendations in detail, providing a formal response in due course. This is a serious piece of work which we will engage with closely in the months ahead.

“We’re pleased that the TSC recognises that reinstating the hard shoulder on all all-lane running motorways could put more drivers and passengers at risk of death and serious injury and that we’re right to focus on upgrading their safety, as the Secretary of State committed to doing when he became Transport Secretary.

“We recognise that improvements have not always been made as quickly as they could have been in the past, but as the committee has set out, the Transport Secretary is absolutely committed to making Smart Motorways as safe as possible, including committing £500 million on upgrades and the faster rollout of Stopped Vehicle Detection.”