Scrap all-lane running plans, say MPs

Plans to convert hundreds of miles of UK motorway hard shoulder into permanent driving lanes should be scrapped while major safety concerns exist, the Government’s Transport Committee has said. In 'all lane running', the latest version of smart motorways, the hard shoulder is used as a live lane of traffic. Previous schemes have only used the hard shoulder at peak times or to deal with congestion. The Committee did not agree with Government that this is an incremental change and a logical extension of
June 30, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
Plans to convert hundreds of miles of UK motorway hard shoulder into permanent driving lanes should be scrapped while major safety concerns exist, the Government’s Transport Committee has said.

In 'all lane running', the latest version of smart motorways, the hard shoulder is used as a live lane of traffic. Previous schemes have only used the hard shoulder at peak times or to deal with congestion.

The Committee did not agree with Government that this is an incremental change and a logical extension of previous schemes. It concluded that the permanent loss of the hard shoulder in all lane running schemes was a radical change and an unacceptable price to pay for such improvements.

With motorway traffic forecast to increase by up to 60 per cent by 2040, the Government sees smart motorways as a way of addressing this growth without incurring the costs of traditional motorway widening.

Chair of the Transport Select Committee, Louise Ellman MP, commented: "The permanent removal of the hard shoulder is a dramatic change. All kinds of drivers, including the emergency services, are genuinely concerned about the risk this presents.”

The Committee heard significant concerns about the scarcity, size and misuse of emergency refuge areas. It also heard about worryingly high levels of non-compliance with Red X signals and said levels of public awareness and confidence about using these motorway schemes are unacceptably low.

The Committee said the Government needs to demonstrate considerable improvement in this area, including more emergency refuge areas, driver education and enforcement, before the Committee will endorse the extension of a scheme which risks putting motorists in harm's way."

Plans are in place to permanently convert the hard shoulder into a running lane on around 300 miles of motorway. 8101 Highways England has a programme of 30 all lane running schemes to the value of circa US$8 billion (£6 billion) over the next nine years. The Department may consider the matter settled but the Committee believes that argument has not been won.
UTC

Related Content

  • August 27, 2014
    Roads revolution adds 900 miles of extra capacity
    Road users in the UK will see around 900 extra lane miles of road capacity added to England’s strategic highway network by 2021, a third more than was provided in the previous decade. The boost is thanks to a huge US£39.7 billion investment, the biggest since the 1970s, which will see annual funding for enhancements to motorways and major A roads triple over the next six years. Investment includes more than US$15 billion on maintenance, US$10 billion of which will be spent on resurfacing 3,000 miles of t
    Read More
  • January 23, 2012
    Changing driving conditions need ongoing driver training
    Trevor Ellis, chairman of the ITS UK Enforcement Interest Group, considers the role of ongoing driver training in increasing compliance. It is over 30 years since I passed my driving test. The world was quite a different place then, in that there were only half the vehicles there are now on the UK's roads, mobile phones did not really exist and (in the UK at least) the vast majority of us drove cars which by today's standards exhibited dreadful dynamic stability and were woefully underpowered.
    Read More
  • August 19, 2015
    Tolling is still stuck on the sidelines says ASECAP speaker
    Geoff Hadwick attended ASECAP’s 2015 Study Days meeting in Lisbon and found a frustrated European tolling sector undertaking some soul searching. The international road tolling industry its failing to make it case and the sector is losing out to a range of other socio-political lobby groups according to International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association (IBTTA) chief executive Pat Jones. Speaking at the recent 2015 ASECAP Study Days conference in Lisbon, Jones issued a stark warning: “Tolling is still o
    Read More
  • June 18, 2014
    Highways Agency awards maintenance contracts to telent
    Technology services company telent has won three prestigious five year contracts worth over US$25.4 million with the UK Highways Agency to maintain critical roadside technology across the east, south-east and M25 regions' motorways and trunk roads. telent now manages all routine and reactive maintenance for over 12,000 technology assets, such as emergency roadside telephones, message signs, traffic signal sites, the Highways Agency weather stations, CCTV cameras, tunnels and many more. The company’
    Read More

Highlighted Content