UK government scraps smart motorway plans, cites high costs and low public confidence
- Reference: 1681749428
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/04/17/uk_government_scraps_smart_motorway/
- Source link:
The [1]announcement from the government earlier today said 11 smart motorways scheduled for construction between 2020 and 2025 that were previously paused won't be built, and an additional three included in future plans have all been removed from the government's road construction plans through 2030.
"While no new stretches will be converted, work on the M56 J6 to J8 and M6 J21a to J26 will go ahead as planned given they are already over three-quarters constructed," the transport department said.
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[3]Smart motorways in the UK come in several varieties, mostly differentiated in how they handle the use of the hard shoulder (as a permanent feature, additional lane for congested periods, or eliminating it entirely in favor of vehicle lanes), but the end goal is to smooth traffic congestion by varying flow throughput and speed limits and adding ramp metering.
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Safety on smart motorways has been a widespread concern since their introduction, and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak made [6]eliminating the stretches part of his campaign platform.
Rollout of the enhanced highways was paused in January 2022, when Sunak was serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer under then-PM Boris Johnson.
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"Last year I pledged to stop the building of all new smart motorways, and today I'm making good on that promise," Sunak [8]said in a statement over the weekend. "Many people across the country rely on driving to get to work, to take their children to school and go about their daily lives and I want them to be able to do so with full confidence that the roads they drive on are safe," the PM added.
Much of the concern expressed by the UK government in 2022 was over smart motorways without shoulders, which have been plagued by reports of stopped vehicles causing accidents. The [9]2022 pause was intended to last until five years of safety data has been gathered on the smart road stretches.
"Although available data shows smart motorways are comparatively the safest roads in the country in terms of fatality rates … the government will go further by ensuring current smart motorways without a permanent hard shoulder are equipped with best-in-class technology and resources to make them as safe as possible," the government said last year.
[10]Over 9 months late, England's highways agency launches contract to buy £1bn in IT
[11]Highways England seeks vendor to replace Windows 2003-based pavement management systems
[12]I'm still not that Gary, says US email mixup bloke who hasn't even seen Dartford Crossing
[13]'Driverless' lorry platoons will soon be on a motorway near you
Some of that aforementioned technology and resources will continue to be applied to existing smart motorways, the government said in today's cancellation announcement, including £900 million ($1.1 billion) the UK said it was allocating for safety improvements.
Part of those improvements include stopped vehicle detection technology, which it said has already been installed across all smart motorway lanes, 150 additional emergency areas on roads without shoulders and "giving motorists clear advice when using existing smart motorways."
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Estimations provided by the government indicate that smart motorway construction would have cost more than £1 billion, though that number wasn't shared with any context. We've asked the Department for Transport for additional comment on the decision and will update this story if we hear back. ®
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[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/plans-for-new-smart-motorways-cancelled
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZD3BgR59L2dEdOZ-iWMBZAAAABQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://nationalhighways.co.uk/our-work/smart-motorways-evidence-stocktake/
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZD3BgR59L2dEdOZ-iWMBZAAAABQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZD3BgR59L2dEdOZ-iWMBZAAAABQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-65288852
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZD3BgR59L2dEdOZ-iWMBZAAAABQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/all-new-smart-motorways-scrapped
[9] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/smart-motorway-rollout-to-be-paused-as-government-responds-to-transport-committee-report
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/21/uk_highways_agency_it_contract/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2021/05/06/highways_englands_pavement_system/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2019/11/12/gary_email_mixup_pt2_dartford_toll_bridge/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2017/08/25/lorry_platooning_dft_trl/
[14] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZD3BgR59L2dEdOZ-iWMBZAAAABQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[15] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
>But shutting down the idea of a) making motorways more dangerous and b) expanding our addiction to CO₂ gets my approval
You misunderstand. the hard-shoulder is still going to be used, they are just removing the "smart" bit.
If you aren't driving a BMW MRAP and somebody hits you - it's your fault for being a poor
Not quite the impression I got.
Current all lane running might remain, but there would be no new conversions, was how it seems to me.
Er, I thought we'd moved to hating cars for new reasons
As an owner of a lovely 100% solar fueled EV (go on nitpick over the rare earths and construction) it does irk a little that folks always associate cars with pollution. As someone with limited mobility, life would be insufferable without a car and I probably wouldn't be able to contribute my many of tens of thousands of tax revenues every year. Some of us actually want a car and to be considerate about it's impact.
Smart motorways are just mostly insufferably dumb, poorly implemented with decades of of date technology staffed by Crapita minimum wage folks. All the profits go in the construction and there's thin pickings in the preventing people being wiped out in the operation. Flip that around a little and incintivise saving lives and deploymoent of the latest technology on a constant basis and we might actually progress.
Variable speed limits seems like a good idea to me but getting rid of the hard shoulder never did. As well as the obvious risks of broken down vehicles and idiots not paying attention even normal running seems risky. My experience of driving on the M42 is that fairly soon after encouraging us to use the hard shoulder there will be a sign stating that it's for the next junction only. I'm not going to keep ducking in then moving back out because changing lanes is one of the most dangerous things you can do and at busy times you might struggle to even get back out before the junction.
Keep the variable speeds but restore the hard shoulders.
If there are capacity problems then motorists just need to adapt. They should change their journey time or find alternative transport (and the government could help out here by ensuring that it's fit for purpose). I love driving but we should have stopped pandering to the motorist years ago. A lot of car journeys are not necessary and are inefficient due to low vehicle occupancy.
These new motorways without a hard shoulder to fly to in an emergency scare the shit out of me to be honest.
Traveling down towards Birmingham during heavy traffic hours on the M6 makes me really twitchy and as a point of protest, I *never* use the leftmost lane when it is "available" to drive on. Whoever thought that it was a good idea really needs shooting.
>Whoever thought that it was a good idea really needs shooting.
But only after they have been held accountable for the deaths and waste of public money they have caused.........
Must be the most bizarrely stupid idea anyone could think of - taking the emergency lane out of our busiest and most congested sections of motorway.
And then fitting emergency laybys, every mile or so, expecting that an incapacitated car could go for a mile, not to mention the idocy of uphill sections having no laybys at all on the uphill section until you reach the top....
The existing ones don't even meet the spec
The distance between the refuge areas is often far longer than the original legislation allowed. It got amended to allow the greater distance without any noticeable consultation or scrutiny.
Like many (most?) drivers, I do not use the left-hand lane on all-lane-running motorway segments because it's 'ing dangerous to do so. I do not want to have to decide what to crash into because the signs took 15 minutes to update.
I'll only enter that lane when approaching my exit, or in traffic jams when nobody is doing more than 20mph if they're lucky.
I've noticed that most drivers treat it as an HGV crawler lane - and of course, very few cars can save the rear passengers in an impact from a lorry.
I've also noticed that nobody stays in their broken-down car anymore. They always clear out and climb the barrier - because they're terrified.
The implication is of course that the statistics on SMALR collision rates and consequences are extremely skewed in their favour, because they ignore the human behaviour.
Re: The existing ones don't even meet the spec
Even on the hard shoulder you are supposed to leave the car and get behind the barrier. No one suggests anyone should stay in the car when it is broken down on a motorway. I have no idea what you are supposed to do if you are disabled, limited mobility, etc.
And does anyone in the UK other than a few lorries ever use the left lane anyway? It seems to be an inbuilt psyche of almost everyone that you are supposed to drive in the middle lane utterly unaware of anything going on around or behind you.. I even know of some people who passed their test and their instructor told them to "just get in the middle lane and stay there until you need to turn off". If you ever drive somewhere like Holland, Belgium or Germany, where folks seem to know how to overtake and pull back in (even BMW's!) it's quite eye opening to come back to the UK and see just how lazy and sloppy folks are. If you are in any of the above countries, within 100 miles or so of one of the ports, and you see a car ahead sitting in the middle or third lane it is almost a always a UK registered car.
I'm fairly sure we can easily increase the capacity and throughput of UK motorways if we actually taught/encouraged people to use them properly.
Re: The existing ones don't even meet the spec
^^^This!^^^
Whoever thought that it was a good idea really needs shooting.
No - just leave them in a car on the left-most lane of a Dumb Motorway - they can then get to experience the consequences of their decisions
This is not about smart motorways, it's an easy to implement measure against something that most people do not like so as to increase the governments popularity before the next election.
I wouldn't even go that far. It's just an excuse not to spend money they don't want to / can't spend. They care as little for the motorist as they do anyone else.
increase the governments popularity before the next election
Easy - The PM advises the monarch to exercise the royal prerogative to dissolve parliament and call an election
Cancelling the new ones is a start. We also need to return the ones already modified to normal.
Cancelling stuff is also a very easy way to govern by press release, something we have gotten used to with the current round of incumbents.
Well, I am so not a fan of Mr Sunak, a corrupt self-serving politico. But shutting down the idea of a) making motorways more dangerous and b) expanding our addiction to CO₂ gets my approval. The UK government (of whichever stripe) talks about the climate but still spends way more of our money on fossil fuel guzzling projects than ones that will mitigate the problem, generate jobs & revenue and make our environments better places in which to live.