Smart motorways are again in the news, and a new official report reveals safety system failures.

In some cases, the new smart motorways are more dangerous than the traditional ones they replaced.

The last government stopped the creation of new smart motorways after a series of high-profile incidents, deaths, and calls from coroners and road safety professionals.

Do the maths

A new report has revealed significant failures in technology designed to enhance driver safety on smart motorways across the UK, raising fresh concerns about their effectiveness.

According to the latest stocktake report on smart motorways and an analysis by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR), multiple stretches of all-lane running (ALR) smart motorways now have a higher rate of serious or fatal accidents compared to when they had a hard shoulder.

This includes sections of the M1 at junctions 39-42, 16-19, and 24-25.

One of the most concerning incidents involved a 28-day outage of National Highways’ motorway incident detection automatic signalling (Midas) system on the M62 between junctions 10 and 11.

The failure lasted 28 days, 8 hours, and 4 minutes and left a key stretch of the motorway without its primary safety monitoring system.

Smart structures

The UK’s strategic road network (SRN) consists of 4,555 miles of motorways and A-roads, with 446 miles designated as smart motorways.

These are divided into three types:

• Controlled Motorways: Maintain a permanent hard shoulder while using variable speed limits displayed on overhead signs.
• All Lane Running (ALR) Motorways: Convert the hard shoulder into a permanent running lane, with emergency refuge areas (ERAs) and stopped vehicle detection (SVD) technology.
• Dynamic Hard Shoulder (DHS) Motorways: Open the hard shoulder for traffic selectively, using speed limits and signage to guide drivers.

 

 

Technology performance

Smart motorways rely on stopped vehicle detection (SVD) systems, which must meet three key criteria:

1. Correctly identifying over 80% of stopped vehicles.
2. Maintaining false alarms below 15%.
3. Detecting stopped vehicles within 20 seconds.

The ORR’s analysis of 12 smart motorway sections found that four failed to meet detection rate targets, one did not meet false alarm limits, and two failed on detection times.

Despite these shortcomings, the ORR maintains that SVD technology continues to improve safety.

However, motoring organizations remain unconvinced.

Unimpressed

The AA has renewed calls to reinstate the hard shoulder, citing rising accident rates and technological failures.

AA President Edmund King criticised smart motorways, stating: “Several sections of all-lane running on the M1 now have higher serious or fatal accident rates than before the hard shoulder was removed. A third of radar detection systems failed to meet the required standards, and a major system outage left drivers at risk for almost a month.”

Nicholas Lyes, director of policy at IAM RoadSmart, echoed these concerns, pointing out that the rate of fatal and serious collisions involving stopped vehicles on ALR motorways is nearly double that of conventional motorways.

“After the many billions of pounds that have been spent on smart motorways, the metrics do not show a safer network compared to what it replaced,” he said.

“It also reveals that on those stretches of all-lane running smart motorways without a hard shoulder, the rate of fatal and serious collisions involving stopped vehicles is almost double that of both a conventional motorway and those with a dynamic hard shoulder.

“Given the public’s hostility towards all lane running smart motorways, they will be relieved to know there are no plans to construct any more.

“However, question marks remain over what to do with existing stretches and how the Government proceeds with future capacity expansion.”

ORR has told National Highways to improve the data it collects on technology outages on ALR smart motorways, so that the company can better understand the effects of outages on road users.

 

 

National Highways’ Response

National Highways has been tasked by the ORR with improving data collection on outages to better assess their impact.

While overall safety on England’s motorways and A-roads has improved, the ORR warns that National Highways is unlikely to meet its goal of halving serious and fatal accidents by 2025.

 

The regulator has said that National Highways must remain focussed on delivering the remaining actions in its plan to close the gap to its target further.

Feras Alshaker, director, performance and planning at the ORR, said: “It is a good thing that that safety continues to improve on the strategic road network, and we should recognise the work that National Highways has been doing to improve safety on its roads.

“National Highways must now focus on implementing the remaining actions from its plan to further improve road user safety.”

Nick Harris, Chief Executive of National Highways, defended the progress made, stating: “We have installed over 700 additional emergency refuge area signs and upgraded enforcement cameras to detect violations of red X lane closures.”

Despite these measures, public scepticism remains high, with growing pressure on the government to reconsider the future of smart motorways in the UK.