UK smart motorway traffic management system suffers two-hour 'outage'

'We apologise for any inconvenience caused,' says National Highways
By Adam Hill February 22, 2023 Read time: 2 mins
Smart motorways: already controversial (© Jevanto | Dreamstime.com)

The traffic system on part of the England's smart motorway network - already controversial because of motorist deaths and safety concerns - was unexpectedly out of action for two hours this morning.

It happened from "around 8.30am and lasted until around 10.30am", says National Highways, which runs the network.

CCTV was still operational during this time, it says, and the south-east and east of the country was not affected.

The organisation insists: "There were no major incidents or serious congestion reported on the network during this period."

The UK government announced last year that development of these all-lane running highways will be put on hold for another few years to assess safety data.

But in the meantime, the existing smart motorway network operates with hard shoulders used as lanes for vehicles - meaning safe spaces for breakdowns is limited to specific refuge areas.

“We are urgently investigating an unplanned outage of our traffic management system that took place this morning," said operational control director Andrew Page-Dove.

“Engineers worked hard to get the system back online as soon as possible and we apologise for any inconvenience caused."

“We have well-rehearsed procedures to deal with issues which arise," continues Page-Dove. "We rapidly took steps to help ensure the safety of road users such as increased patrols and CCTV monitoring.”

Enforcement

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • A new era for England’s major roads
    March 26, 2015
    Highways England, the government-owned company which will deliver the largest investment in England’s major roads in a generation, officially launches next week. The company, which replaces the Highways Agency from 1 April, will invest US$16 billion in delivering a raft of improvements on England’s motorways and major A roads making roads even safer, improving traffic flow and reducing congestion. The improvements over the first five years of operation include: 112 major improvements, including 15 sma
    Read More
  • Israel aspires to ITS-led future
    May 29, 2013
    Shay Soffer, Chief Scientist with the Israel National Road Safety Authority, talks to Jason Barnes about his country’s current ITS outlook and how he sees this developing in the future. Israel ranks alongside countries such as the US and France in the road safety stakes, with an average 7.1 deaths per billion kilometres driven. But at that point the similarities end, as the country’s overriding issue is pedestrian safety. This is driven by several factors, including being a relatively small country where pe
    Read More
  • Video developments in automatic incident detection
    May 22, 2012
    David Crawford reviews technological progress with automatic incident detection Highway safety problems are likely to intensify given recent predictions of future traffic growth across the world. In the United States, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports that currently over 30,000 deaths and 1.5 million injuries occur as the result of accidents on the nation’s roads each year. These figures will increase with the number of kilometres travelled each year in the US expected to gr
    Read More
  • Big data and GPS combine to cut emergency response times
    April 2, 2014
    David Crawford looks at technologies for better emergency medical service delivery. Emergency medical services (EMS) play key roles in transporting, or bringing treatment to, patients who become ill through medical emergencies or are injured in road traffic accidents (RTAs). But awareness has been rising steadily, in the US and elsewhere, of the extent to which EMS can generate their own emergencies. The most common cause is vehicles causing or becoming involved in RTAs, as a result of driving fast under pr
    Read More

Highlighted Content