The Transport Select Committee also calls for additional emergency refuge areas to be introduced to existing all lane running sections of smart motorway, so they are no more than one mile apart – and preferably positioned every 750m. It also claims there has been a failure to deliver on promises to make safety improvements to smart motorways.

Available data on the safety of all lane running is described as “limited and volatile” and efforts to communicate changes to motorway design to drivers has been “woeful” with more than half of motorists thought to still be unclear on what to do if they break down in a live lane.
 
The Committee also said a Government decision in March 2020 that all smart motorways would be all lane running was premature. Data on the safety and economic performance of existing schemes was “insufficient to reach that judgment”.

In addition, the scale of safety measures needed to mitigate the risks associated with the permanent removal of hard shoulders “has been underestimated by successive administrations, the Department for Transport and National Highways”.
 
Five years ago, the Committee concluded that “the trade off on safety” was an “unacceptable price to pay” for the benefits of all lane running on smart motorways. The Department for Transport and Highways England promised safety improvements. An 18 point plan was produced in a ‘stocktake’ of smart motorways in March 2020, but the latest report says those steps “do not fully address the risks associated with the removal of the hard shoulder”.
 
Introducing changes to the design and operation of the strategic road network should, the report says, depend on a formal safety assessment by the Office of Rail & Road.
 
Transport Committee chair Huw Merriman said that lives have been lost and many motorists feel unsafe using all lane running smart motorways. “More action is needed to demonstrate their worth,” he said.

Huw added that 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 continued: “We’re not convinced that reinstating the hard shoulder on existing schemes is the answer, but the Department for Transport must pause the rollout and take stock.”

AA president Edmund King said: “We hope the Government will respond quickly to these recommendations so that action can be taken to improve the safety of smart motorways and the public’s perception of these roads.”
 
A Department for Transport spokesman said it will consider the Transport Select Committee’s recommendations in detail and provide a formal response in due course. “This is a serious piece of work which we will engage with closely in the months ahead.”

The spokesman added that the Department recognises improvements have not always been made as quickly as they could have been in the past.

(Photograph: National Highways)