Transport Insights

The latest issue of Local Transport Today (LTT) also has my take on the departure (or defenestration) of National Highways chief executive Nick Harris.

There has been a lot of speculation about why Harris supposedly chose this moment to depart, including the variable speed cameras fiasco.

At the time that LTT went to press last week, the Department for Transport was still preventing National Highways publishing what turned out to be 16 Post Opening Project Evaluation (POPE) reports on smart motorways.

Aware that it was a bit of a hostage to fortune if the reports turned out to be a damp squib, I wrote:

The Department for Transport is also believed to be preparing to release a raft of evaluation reports about individual smart motorway schemes that it has prevented National Highways from publishing, raising suspicions that they cast further doubts over their safety and economic benefits.

Suspicions that the reports cast further doubts over the safety and economic benefits of smart motorway schemes included this from AA president Edmund King:

 By continuously delaying their release, it is feared that the drawbacks outweigh the benefits. 

…which turned out to be vindicated and the reports made national news.

But on reflection, the reports were so old that Harris could not reasonably be held responsible for the failings that they revealed. Many of the schemes opened in the last decade, before Harris came into post in 2021.