Transport Insights

The transport stories you won't see in the industry-friendly media

Author

Chris Ames

  • AA calls for POPEs to be released

    The AA has picked up on my revelation that the Department for Transport (DfT) is sitting on a large number of post-opening evaluations of smart motorways and suggested that the loss of the hard shoulder may be responsible for an increase in delays on the strategic road network.

    The DfT has published Average delay on the Strategic Road Network in England: monthly and annual averages which shows that the average delay up to June 2025 was 11.6 seconds per mile, up 5.5% in a year.

    The AA said it believes that the impact of smart motorways is now “firmly under the spotlight”, adding that drivers are avoiding lane one through fear of running into a stranded vehicle, which undermines the efficiency and speed of these roads.

    Another reason for increased delays on motorways without a hard shoulder is that they have less resilience when things go wrong.

    Elsewhere on the network, major schemes like the one at Junction 10 of the M25 have continued to cause significant traffic jams.

    The AA also noted my report that several Post Opening Project Evaluation (POPE) reports into all lane running schemes have yet to be released, and called for their immediate publication.

    Head of roads policy Jack Cousens said:

    With numerous stretches of so-called smart motorway now in regular use, rather than improving traffic flow it seems to have created more bottlenecks.

    There are several reports about these schemes which have not yet been released by the Department for Transport which would show what, if any, improvements drivers have experienced.

    We need these documents released to understand what traffic flow benefits have been made, alongside a value for money assessment on these motorways drivers perceive as dangerous.

  • Northern Powerhouse fail

    Labour has once again got cold feet over Northern Powerhouse Rail, the BBC’s Faisal Islam reports.

    Plans to extend high-speed rail across the north of England have been delayed further and will not now be announced by the prime minister at the Labour Party conference next week.

    The BBC understands concerns over the long-term costs of the line earmarked between Liverpool and Manchester have pushed back the revival of Northern Powerhouse Rail.

    The Northern Powerhouse was invented a decade ago by the Tories

    Islam adds that “an announcement had been expected on multiple occasions in recent months”.

    Indeed it had; only last month a Guardian “exclusive” told us that:

    Keir Starmer is to formally revive Northern Powerhouse Rail this autumn with an announcement expected before the Labour conference, as a major demonstration of Labour’s commitment to northern infrastructure.

    (more…)

  • Back off!

    The AA is again flagging up the dangers (and irritation) of tailgaiting – and it’s right to do so.

    The motoring organisation says that, in to a survey of 12,014 drivers, more than a quarter (27%) named tailgating as the most irritating behaviour carried out by “other drivers”.

    The poll also found that a fifth (19%) of drivers are “hacked off” by middle lane hoggers, while one in six (16%) get annoyed at drivers picking up and using a mobile phone when they are behind the wheel.

    A study carried out by AA Accident Assist in 2023 also highlighted driver frustration over tailgating and in another survey last year more than half (55%) of drivers said it had been getting worse in recent years.

    (more…)

  • Exclusive: Labour blocks smart motorway safety data

    Ministers are sitting on a huge amount of data on the safety and value for money of smart motorway schemes, including at least nine that were due for completion in 2022.

    The concealment of multiple post opening project evaluation (POPE) reports will raise concerns that the government is once again hiding inconvenient facts about the controversial roads, as it did in 2021, when I put pressure on the Department for Transport (DfT) over reports that it was suppressing.

    When the five-years after POPE on the scheme to convert the M1 between junctions 10 and 13 to dynamic hard shoulder was published in September 2021, it revealed that it had cost the economy £200m instead of a projected benefit of £1bn, because it slowed traffic down. It made national news.

    In its Annual Assessment of National Highways’ performance 2021-22, regulator the Office of Rail and Road stated:

    We are scrutinising the company’s POPE publication plan for smart motorway schemes. Nine of these are due to be completed in 2022. In July 2021, the company published the five-year POPE for the M1 junctions 10 to 13 dynamic hard shoulder running scheme.

    That POPE was the last report on a smart motorway to be published, which is unsurprising given how terrible the data was, although aggregated safety data is published separately.

    When I asked National Highways why no more POPE reports had been published, a spokesperson told me:

    We have provided the Department for Transport (DfT) with the smart motorway post opening project evaluation (POPE) reports. These are multiple detailed evaluations of scheme performance and DfT is now in the process of undertaking its final assurance.

    Obviously, for those reports completed in 2022, “undertaking final assurance” means locked in a cupboard.

    (more…)

  • Greenwood sidelined as Lightwood takes roads brief

    Simon Lightwood has been made the new roads minister following the shambolic reshuffle that saw Lilian Greenwood removed from the Department for Transport (DfT) after showing too much enthusiasm for tackling pavement parking, before being partially re-instated.

    However, Greenwood will only be a part-time minister as she has another job in the Whips Office.

    It’s not clear what she will do at the DfT as it has still not bothered to tell the public which minister is responsible for which bit of transport policy. Lightwood is still listed on its website as minister for local transport, while Greenwood and new minister Keir Mather have no responsibilities or roles listed.

    Based on the announcements linked to him, Mather appears to have responsibility for maritime and aviation policy.

    I have previously noted Greenwoods clear statements (several months apart) to take action “very soon” on pavement parking and that a parliamentary answer from Lightwood suggested that he was in no hurry to do anything.

    Time will tell, but he may have been given the roads brief to take forward Labour’s Plan for Change by not changing very much.

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  • Exclusive: Second secretly shelved scheme surfaces

    I can exclusively reveal the other major scheme in the second road investment strategy (RIS 2) that ministers secretly pulled the plug on during the 2021 Spending Review.

    According to a November 2022 report from the National Audit Office:

    In February 2022, DfT formally notified National Highways that two projects on the watchlist had been deprioritised as an outcome of the 2021 Spending Review. These two projects remained in the portfolio awaiting a final decision on whether to proceed but their funding has been removed.

    The NAO revealed that one of these schemes was the A1 Morpeth to Ellingham scheme, which the company formally paused almost immediately, but it did not name the other scheme, which was also blacked out of all documents previously disclosed to me.

    Now the Department for Transport has told me that the second, previously unnamed scheme was the M25 Junctions 10-16.

    (more…)

  • Cadbury challenges minister to square the circle on aviation emissions

    The chair of the House of Commons Transport Select Committee has issued a statement that calls out a lot of the uncertainty and inconsistency in the government’s decision to approve Gatwick Airport’s expansion plans.

     Ruth Cadbury MP said:

    If the Government is determined to expand England’s airports, Gatwick’s second runway is among the lower hanging fruit.

    They continue to say they are committed to reducing carbon emissions, but we are waiting for them to show us how they will square the circle of doing so whilst enabling thousands more flights.

    (more…)

  • Please give the work experience lad something to do

    Note the big gap where his “Role” should be.

    source: Keir Mather MP – GOV.UK

  • Exclusive: National Highways aims for 10,000 more LEDs this year

    National Highways has told me that it is aiming to achieve the level of LED streetlight installation during the current year that would keep it (more or less) on track for one of its main decarbonisation targets.

    I wrote last week that the company installed 12,745 LED lights during 2024-25, in pursuit of a target of 70% LED street lighting by 2027 in its Net Zero Highways plan.

    An early upgrade on the M62, showing sodium (left) vs LED lights

    While this took it to 51%, compared to 40% a year earlier, which appears to be the rate of change required to hit the 2027 target, I noted that published documents are unclear about what will happen over the next two years.

    There is no mention of the issue in the company’s settlement for the current, interim year and the clearest commitment to taking it forward is an unquantified referent its delivery plan for the year to “delivering our LED lighting programme to support our carbon reduction commitments”.

    But a National Highways spokesperson has told me:

    We are committed to our target of ensuring 70 per cent of the road network is upgraded with LED lighting by 2027 and we are aiming to install a further 10,000 during 2025-26.

    However, upgrading LED lighting is dependent on a number of factors, including severe weather, the availability of road space/local highway diversion routes and the condition of the existing lighting assets on the network.

    (more…)

  • Reeves boosts climate change for a slogan

    The line from chancellor Rachel Reeves that the green light for more carbon emissions from Gatwick shows that the government is “backing the builders, not the blockers” tells you all you need to know about how serious a government this is.

    It is government by slogan and forget the climate emergency.

    On LinkedIn, Alex Chapman of the New Economics Foundation points out just how flimsy the economic case is, highlighting a section of the decision letter that shows that the socioeconomic case only provides a “moderate” case in favour of Gatwick’s plans to fly more people abroad to boost other countries’ economies.

    Chapman also points out that ministers are trashing their own climate plans:

    He concludes:

    Proceeding was the politically easiest option, but it was not responsible, nor was it evidence-based.

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