Are we finally saying a fond farewell to the much-unloved smart motorway?

There will be more than a few drivers happy to see the back of the can-we can’t-we all-running lanes, with their instructions issued overhead in red LEDs every few miles. For them, the motorways were about as smart as Blackadder’s Baldrick was cunning.

According to a LinkedIn poll posted by CIHT, the majority of traffic planners and engineers are also happy to see the back of them, with 61% thinking that the government’s decision to scrap smart motorways was right.

The UK has been using smart motorways as an active traffic management system since 2006, with over £2bn spent on rolling out all-lane running provision. So after all that investment, why has the government U-turned?

A flawed premise

Smart motorways manage the flow of traffic and increase road capacity during peak times. However, introducing a traffic management system that relies on changing the number of active lanes also requires drivers to have lane management skills to adapt to the increase or decrease in road capacity. British drivers do not have those skills.

It’s not our fault. Until recently, British driver training hasn’t included motorways so most licence holders have never learned how to drive safely at high speed on multi-lane highways. An empty lane for miles with lane two hogs not overtaking is a common sight on M-roads. And the government didn’t exactly blitz us with publicity on how to drive safely on smart motorways.

The perception of smart motorways was also negative before they even came into use. Drivers disliked them from the very first lane closure and subsequent traffic jam resulting from roadworks to make the motorway smart. Nobody likes average speed cameras either, so smart motorways never stood a chance.

High-profile fatalities

When you add in the high-profile motorway fatalities, with families in vehicles on hard shoulders killed by HGVs because a driver didn’t realise the hard shoulder wasn’t a hard shoulder at the time, then you have a major problem. However, as is often the case with perception, the reality of smart motorway safety is a little different. They work perfectly well in mainland Europe for example.

CIHT Fellow and road safety spokesperson Kate Carpenter presented data-based evidence on behalf of CIHT to the Transport Select Committee’s inquiry into smart motorways two years ago. When the government recently announced the scrapping of the smart motorway, Kate was quoted in this CIHT news story saying: “The public concern is mainly around stopped vehicles, but these are a very small proportion of all collisions.”

This is indeed the case. According to National Highways’ Smart Motorways Stocktake Second Year, the proportion ranges from 2.36% for controlled motorways and 2.99% for conventional motorways to 5.26% for all-lane-running motorways. A new stocktake is due this month, about which Kate has stated: “If the third-year stocktake… shows the same lower fatality rate on all three forms of SM compared to a conventional motorway, the programme being stopped is likely to result in a higher motorway fatality rate than had the cancelled schemes gone ahead.”

If the polls prove to be accurate, the government could change next year, so would an incoming administration look at the data again and reintroduce smart motorways? Or will it accept psychologist Edward de Bono’s assertion that logic will never change emotion or perception and ensure the return of hard shoulders?

For more background, resources and to share your own opinion on smart motorways, join the conversation on CIHT Connect, the discussion platform for CIHT members.

Words by Craig Thomas

For more background, resources and to share your own opinion on smart motorways, join the conversation on CIHT Connect, the discussion platform for CIHT members.