Road campaigners and motoring organisations have urged UK government ministers to immediately release a series of “withheld” safety assessments of smart motorways – some dating back to 2022.
Designed to increase capacity, smart motorways have the hard shoulder converted into a live lane of traffic, relying on occasional laybys and electronic overhead signs to close lanes in emergencies.
Campaigners believe the reports from National Highways, which is responsible for England’s motorways, have been suppressed because they cast further doubt on the safety and economic benefits of smart motorways.
The Department for Transport (DfT) has said the reports, known as “popes” (post-opening project evaluations), will be published imminently, and do not undermine the broad case for smart motorways as statistically the safest roads.
However, with a number of deaths in horrific circumstances after breakdowns, motoring organisations have urged the government to restore the hard shoulder, despite a series of works since 2020 to improve safety.
The last pope report to be released came in 2021 and examined a converted section of the M1 between junctions 10 and 13. It found that in the first five years, journey times had slowed and the number of accidents causing severe injury had increased, while a forecast economic boost of £1bn turned into a £200m deficit.
Nine pope reports on different smart motorways were due to be completed in 2022. National Highways said it had provided the DfT with the reports, adding: “These are multiple detailed evaluations of scheme performance and DfT is now in the process of undertaking its final review.”
Claire Mercer, of the Smart Motorways Kill campaign, demonstrated with her local MP outside the DfT in November, urging the government to “release the popes”. She said: “The longer it takes, you think either they are that uninterested, or there really is something going on. If [the reports] showed good news, they’d release them.”
While the DfT has said the delay in publishing the popes was necessary to “fully assure” the complex findings, and maintained it was committed to transparency, a response from National Highways to Chris Ames, the author of the Transport Insights blog, suggested officials were anxious to manage how the results were presented.
Ames was told that 14 reports would be released before Christmas last year “subject to the DfT agreeing the communications handling plan”. He said the continuing delay suggested the contents “must be really, really bad”.
Jack Cousens, the head of roads policy at the AA, said: “These safety reports on so-called smart motorways have been withheld for far too long, and we urgently need to see them published.”
He said the reports needed to “show the outcomes of these schemes regardless of their failures or successes”.
The AA, and drivers they surveyed, wanted hard shoulders to be restored, Cousens said: “While the hard shoulder is a dangerous place, it is not as dangerous as breaking down in a live lane, being unsure if the technology has spotted you.”
Mercer started campaigning after her husband, Jason, was killed on the M1 in 2019 after a minor collision with another car. He and the other driver were fatally struck by a lorry after having to leave their vehicles in live traffic.
Mercer said: “We’ve had stocktakes, select committees, ombudsmen … We continually investigate smart motorways – but leave them running. All they have to do is turn the first lane off. Any company would be done for corporate manslaughter by now.”
The Conservative government “stocktake” in 2020 led to a moratorium on any new smart motorways, although works in progress continued to convert stretches of major routes, including the M1. The first projects were tested in 2006, but smart motorways were rolled out more widely from 2013.
Measures included more vehicle detection technology and stopping areas, with 150 extra refuges added across existing stretches of the M1, M3, M4, M5, M20, M25 and M27, and more signage informing drivers of the distance to the next safe place to stop. Enforcement cameras had been upgraded to enable them to be used to detect vehicles passing under a red X, which indicates when a lane is closed.
A National Highways spokesperson said: “Safety is our number one priority, and we’re doing everything in our control to make sure our roads are even safer.
“Our latest analysis continues to show that overall, smart motorways remain our safest roads. We have completed all of our stocktake actions, including upgrading the technology to detect stopped vehicles and improving response times to live lane breakdowns.”
A DfT spokesperson said: “Smart motorways remain our safest roads in terms of deaths or serious injuries. We continue to monitor their performance and have significantly invested in safety features to give users peace of mind.”
