Smart motorway technology fails almost once a day

Smart motorway technology[1] supposed to keep broken-down drivers safe from traffic is failing nearly once a day, a freedom of information (FoI) request has revealed. There were 174 power outages that hit vital smart motorway safety equipment in the six months to February 2024, which is equivalent to nearly one per day. Vital radar sensors used to detect broken-down cars and alert National Highways operatives to dangerous situations are affected by the power outages.

Overhead gantry signs that tell drivers to stay out of lanes with stationary traffic in them are also affected. The findings show how vulnerable the life-saving technology is to power outages that can last for days, putting motorists’ lives at risk. Overall, smart motorway technology failed more than 400 times over a 17-month period, the BBC’s Panorama programme discovered under FoI laws.

Further data obtained by the BBC revealed that there were 397 power failures between June 2022 and February this year.

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Power supply failures disabled smart motorway radar sensors used for detecting broken-down cars and closing motorway lanes. One of those outages, on Junction 14 of the M4, lasted for 11 days and saw both the sensors and overhead gantry signs used to warn drivers of lane closures taken out of action. Edmund King, the AA president, said these failures were “every driver’s worst nightmare” as he called for hard shoulders to be reinstated on all smart motorways.

“We have been exposing the dangers of smart motorways for more than a decade and have made representations to more than a dozen transport secretaries and ministers,” Mr King said. “Four-fifths of our members tell us that they want smart motorways scrapped[2] and the hard shoulder reinstated.

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“Now is the time to stop this failed experiment. Efforts have been made to retrofit safety at great expense, but you can never fully correct such a flawed design.”

A National Highways traffic officer, speaking anonymously, told the BBC: “They’re supposed to spot [broken down cars] … Are they looking at the cows in the field or are they actually looking at the motorway? “Some of the cameras are very old – there are some signals that haven’t worked for 10-15 years.”

Smart motorways were first introduced in 2006, with a stretch of the M42 having the hard shoulder opened up to traffic during peak congestion times. Since then, about 250 miles of so-called “all lane running” smart motorways have been introduced at a cost of around GBP3 billion.

50 deaths linked to smart motorways

More than 50 deaths have been linked to crashes on smart motorways caused by vehicles ploughing into broken-down cars that cannot escape from traffic because of the lack of hard shoulder. Last April, Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, cancelled plans to expand the smart motorway network[3], saying the public had lost confidence in the roads.

National Highways is spending GBP900 million installing extra laybys on smart motorways where the hard shoulder has been converted into an extra running lane to increase traffic capacity. Andrew Page-Dove, the state-owned company’s operational control director, said: “Safety is our highest priority and our motorways are statistically some of the safest in the world, but there is still work to do as every death is a tragedy and every serious injury a life changed. “They were introduced to provide extra capacity on some of our busiest and most congested sections of motorway, and the latest data shows that, overall, in terms of serious or fatal casualties, smart motorways are our safest roads.”

A report from the highways maintenance organisation revealed in December that drivers are three times more dangerous to break down on smart motorways than normal motorways with hard shoulders[4]. The Telegraph previously revealed that National Highways’ safety systems were hit by electricity supply problems that lasted for a total of 541 hours across 52 separate days at numerous locations between April and August last year.

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It is not only failures with signs and sensors that are blighting smart motorways and contributing to road deaths, however. A “catastrophic failure” of a vital computer system culminated in a pile-up on the southbound M6 on January 19 when a car was left a “sitting duck” after breaking down.

The vehicle failed to reach an emergency refuge area on the “all lane running” stretch of the motorway before being hit repeatedly by other vehicles between Junctions 3a and 3 near Coventry.

References

1. ^ Smart motorway technology (www.telegraph.co.uk)
2. ^ they want smart motorways scrapped (www.telegraph.co.uk)
3. ^ Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, cancelled plans to expand the smart motorway network (www.telegraph.co.uk)
4. ^ three times more dangerous to break down on smart motorways than normal motorways with hard shoulders (www.telegraph.co.uk)