How the smart motorways experiment failed

Rishi Sunak has announced that no new smart motorways will be built in the UK. The Telegraph has highlighted the safety concerns over the roads for years. Here is a timeline on the history of smart motorways and how The Telegraph helped to get them scrapped.

August 1995 - UK's first controlled motorway introduced on the M25

The concept, which is very much seen as the forebearer of the smart motorway [1], implemented variable speeds to keep the flow of traffic going, with the speeds shown on gantries above lanes.

Crucially though, they retained a hard shoulder for cars that broke down. These were rolled out widely across the motorway network and by the end of 2018, around 136 miles (around 3% of the network) were covered in controlled motorways.

Getting smart: What are smart motorways and how do they work?[2]#wrp-8c40aff0-e791-4f29-99d3-3e6023b3b0f7{background-color:#f8f8f8;width:100%;}

September 2006 - Government begins experimenting with smart motorways forebearer

The concept of the Dynamic Hard Shoulder (DHS) motorway was born, when the Highways Agency deactivated the hard shoulder of the heavily congested stretch of the M42 in Birmingham at peak times. The refuge areas were 500 metres apart and the smart motorways test had seen a reduction in congestion and accidents.

Ms Kelly believed it to be so successful that it would be extended to the M6 near Birmingham with work to begin in 2008 and be completed by 2011. However, in the new all-lane running project, the refuge gaps increased to 800 metres, making it more difficult to pull over. You can read The Telegraph's analysis of the history of the smart motorways experiment here.[3]

2010- 2013 - Concept of smart motorways is born

The Highways Agency came up with the idea of permanent all-running lanes, which would reduce congestion on roads, while, in an austerity Britain, would save money as no new roads needed to be built.

The Government was keen and the new road safety minister Sir Mike Penning and the then transport secretary Philip Hammond, gave the new roads the green light and a new name, smart motorways. More than GBP2bn was given to convert sections of the M1, M4, M5, M6, M25, M60 and M62 into converting the hard shoulder into a lane ready for traffic.

England's smart motorway network [4]

February 2015 - Three die on M1

One of the first deaths on an all-lane running smart motorway is reported. It would later emerge that the crash happened on a section of the hard shoulder that is sometimes used as a live lane.

Tom Aldridge, 20, and Nathan Reeves, 23, from Buckinghamshire, and Allan Evans, 59, from Islington died in the crash after a bus driver failed to see the signs advising that the hard shoulder should not be driven down. It came after the Highways Agency revealed that almost a third of road users didn't know what to do when the red X displayed on a lane.

June 2016 - MPs call to scrap 'dangerous' plan

An inquiry by the Commons Transport Select Committee raises huge concerns about the safety of smart motorways, and calls for an outright halt to schemes. The report by the MPs found that major safety concerns existed around the implementations and said there was widespread concern about the safety

The select committee chair at the time, Labour MP Louise Ellman, said: "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."

August 2019 - Smart motorways are a risk to life, says widow

The Telegraph reveals that plans for a wider roll-out were in doubt after a widow of a man killed on a notorious stretch of the M1 was looking to sue Highways England for manslaughter.[5] It came as The Telegraph analysis had found that four people had been killed on the same stretch in just 10 months.

Speaking publicly for the first time, widow Claire Mercer said the smart motorways experiment had failed and should be scrapped.

Ms Mercer's husband Jason was killed on a smart motorway after being hit by a lorry while exchanging details with another driver after a collision.

Jason Mercer, 44, was killed on a stretch of the M1 that operates as a smart motorway

October 2019 - Corner demands Highways England action after death of eight-year-old

West Midlands coroner Emma Brown demands Highways England to explain what can be done to spot stranded motorists trapped on smart motorways. It came after an inquest into the death of eight-year-old boy Dev Naran, who was killed after the car he was in stopped on a hard shoulder temporarily opened to traffic. In a report by The Telegraph [6], Mrs Brown announced she wanted more answers after Highways England admitted it did not detect the vehicle was stationary or close the lane before the accident.

August 2021 - Smart motorways system dubbed 'Die Now'

An investigation by The Telegraph [7] reveals that the computer systems controlling smart motorways had been nicknamed 'Die Now' by staff after they became unusable three times in four days.

A National Highways insider told The Telegraph that staff were worried people would get killed on the smart motorways, and were "petrified" because it felt like the whole system was a "ticking timebomb".

January 2022 - Rollout to be halted as safety review launched

Transport secretary Grant Shapps announces that there will be full halt on the rollout [8] of smart motorways until a full safety review had been carried out across the network. The decision came after several high-profile deaths and a scathing Transport Select Committee report which found there was not enough safety data available to justify continuing with the plan. Mr Shapps said that there would be a halt on all smart motorways schemes until five years worth of data on the safety of the schemes had been collected and analysed.

The Telegraph's page 1 story

August 2022 - Rishi Sunak pledges to ban smart motorways if he becomes leader

Rishi Sunak pledges to ban all new smart motorways as part of his manifesto during his summer 2022 campaign to become prime minister.

Speaking to The Telegraph [9], Mr Sunak, who would lose out to Liz Truss, labelled the type of motorways unsafe, and said this would be part of his plan to combat a war on motorists.

September 2022 - How the country got smart motorways so wrong

A Telegraph investigation tells the story of repeated failures in the conception and implementation [10] of the smart motorways, as well as the high numbers of deaths of drivers and passengers that had broken down in a live lane. The paper spoke to bereaved of smart motorways victimes, including Claire Mercer whose husband was killed on a smart motorway after being hit by a lorry while exchanging details with a driver after a collision. She told The Telegraph: "As a former engineer, I know that if there is a safety issue with a part or system, it is isolated and removed until it is made safe."

"Not every car will reach an emergency refuge area."

December 2022 - Watchdog reveals up to 40pc of breakdowns not detected

An investigation by the roads regulator finds that National Highways safety radar technology meant to detect stranded cars on smart motorways is missing up to 40 per cent of stopped vehicles and "falling short" of minimum targets. The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) ound alerts that should happen within 20 seconds took more than a minute in one region, and that more than four in five alerts were false alarms in another. It said that while National Highways had met deadlines to install safety technology, "urgent action is needed" to address its performance.

Commenting on the findings, Claire Mercer told The Telegraph: Claire "It beggars belief that the Government decided to replace a physical, tangible safety system like the hard shoulder with a faulty IT system.

"National Highways' so-called safety features are not fit for purpose."

April 2023 - Smart motorways scrapped

Rishi Sunak declares that no more smart motorways [11] would be built in the UK after the government admitted the public has lost confidence in them.

Under plans it revealed fourteen planned roads have been axed.

Road improvement map [12]

It came after years of campaigning by the families of crash victims and accusations that ministers had "blood on their hands" for running a "deadly" 18-year experiment on Britain's highways.

References

^ smart motorway (www.telegraph.co.uk)
^ Getting smart: What are smart motorways and how do they work? (cf-particle-html.eip.telegraph.co.uk)
^ here. (www.telegraph.co.uk)
^ England's smart motorway network (cf-particle-html.eip.telegraph.co.uk)
^ to sue Highways England for manslaughter. (www.telegraph.co.uk)
^ a report by The Telegraph (www.telegraph.co.uk)
^ An investigation by The Telegraph (www.telegraph.co.uk)
^ full halt on the rollout (www.telegraph.co.uk)
^ to The Telegraph (www.telegraph.co.uk)
^ repeated failures in the conception and implementation (www.telegraph.co.uk)
^ no more smart motorways (www.telegraph.co.uk)
^ Road improvement map (cf-particle-html.eip.telegraph.co.uk)