News
Government delays rollout of smart motorways over safety concerns
Five years’ worth of safety and economic data will need be collected from smart motorways
The rollout of all-lane smart motorways has been delayed while their safety is assessed, the government has confirmed today.
Following the publishing of the recent Transport Committee report, ministers from the Department for Transport concluded that schemes to convert stretches of the M3, M25, M62 and M40 into smart motorways will be held off on until substantial safety data on the motorways are available.
According to the BBC, five years’ worth of safety and economic data will now be collected from smart motorways built before 2020.
The government’s move comes after MPs said in November there was not enough safety and economic data to justify the rollout.
A report by the Commons’ Transport Select Committee described the Government’s decision to make all future smart motorways all-lane-running versions in March 2020 as ‘premature’, while also stressing that the evidence available is ‘limited and volatile’.
Concerns were also raised following a number of fatal accidents involving broken-down vehicles being hit from behind – according to government figures obtained by BBC Panorama in 2020, thirty-eight people were killed on smart motorways between 2014 and 2019.
Controlled smart motorways – which only use the hard shoulder as a live traffic lane during peak periods – have the ‘lowest casualty rates’ of all roads across motorways and major A roads in England, the report also noted.
Number 10 / Flickr
What is a smart motorway?
A smart motorway is a stretch of road where technology is used to regulate traffic flow with the aim to ease congestion. There are three types of smart motorway; Controlled has a permanent hard shoulder, but uses technology such as variable speed limits to adjust traffic flows.
A dynamic smart motorway opens up the hard shoulder at peak times to be used as an extra lane; when this happens, the speed limit is reduced to 60mph.
And lastly, an all-lane running motorway permanently removes the hard shoulder to provide an extra lane; emergency refuge areas are provided at intervals for cars that get into trouble.