Transport Insights

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

Author

Chris Ames

Tag: road safety

  • AA pushes back against “attempt to bury bad news”

    The AA has published its analysis of 16 previously suppressed Post Opening Project Evaluation (POPE) reports on smart motorways, pointing out that many are losing the economy money, while their safety record is at best mixed, with some becoming more dangerous after the hard shoulder is removed.

    The motoring group has been careful to distinguish between the different types of motorway given so-called “smart” technology ­– controlled motorways, which keep the hard shoulder; dynamic hard shoulder (DHS), where the hard shoulder can be used as a running lane at during periods of high congestion; and all lane running (ALR), where the hard shoulder is permanently converted into a running lane.

    It points out that two schemes – the M25 ALR section between junctions 23 to 27, and the M6 DHS section between junctions 5 to 8 – are losing the economy money and have been rated “very poor” value for money.

    A further six schemes have been rated as “not on track – poor” or “not on track – low” in respect of providing value money at the end of the evaluation period once the motorway has been opened to traffic.

    The AA points out that in many cases, converting the hard shoulder into a permanent or temporary running lane has reduced the speed of traffic.

    Just three schemes were “on track” in relation to value for money at the end of the five-year evaluation period.

    The AA noted that many of the reports are dated September 2023, despite many completing their evaluation period between 2017 and 2019.

    President Edmund King said:

    After a lengthy wait, these reports finally see the light of day. The reluctant release of these documents, without any announcement feels like an attempt to bury bad news.

    This has been a catastrophic waste of time, money and effort. Many of the schemes have slower journeys which causes traffic jams, loses the country cash and worsened the safety record of motorways.

    (more…)

  • Popes released: Poor value, high casualties

    National Highways buried increases in fatalities from a new smart motorway by comparing a five-year period before the scheme opened with a three-year period afterwards.

    The company has finally released a huge batch of Post Opening Project Evaluation (POPE) reports that the Department for Transport (DfT) has prevented it publishing, some going back many years.

    They show a mixed picture for safety across a variety of all lane running (ALR), dynamic hard shoulder and controlled motorways, and that some schemes worsened journey times to the point where they provide “very poor” value for money, on top of the huge disruption involved in building them.

    The POPE report for the M1 junctions 19 to 16 ALR scheme, which opened in 2018 after the hard shoulder had been converted to a permanent running lane, claimed that::

    The number of fatal collisions has not changed with a total of four before and after the project became operational.

    However, in the three years before the scheme opened, there were three fatalities, meaning that fatalities had increased by 33%.

    The report did the same for fatalities recorded in the wider area around the scheme. It stated:

    After the project was constructed, we have observed a decrease in collisions resulting in fatalities (the total before the project was 34, compared to 24 after).

    In fact, the figure of 24 comes from the three years after opening and during the thee years before construction started there were 16 fatalities, representing a 50% increase. The figure of 24 fatalities over three years represents an annual average of eight, and would be 40 over five years.

    In addition, the last of these years, running to 28 January 2021, was a year of significantly lower traffic levels due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

    The POPEs also include a mixture of killed and seriously injured crashes (KSIs – the measure against which National Highways was measured over the 2020-25 roads period) and other measures, such as fatality weighted injuries.

    Among POPE reports showing a KSI total is the M3 Junctions 2-4a ALR scheme, which opened in 2017 and showed an increase of around a third in both the overall number of KSIs and the number per hundred vehicle miles, which measures KSIs compared to traffic levels.

    The five-year POPE report for the M1 junctions 39 to 42 ALR project shows that the scheme led to an increase in KSI casualties but offered ‘poor’ value for money because predicted journey time savings used to justify the scheme did not materialise.

    The appraisal forecast a significant traffic growth and improving journey times; the observed data suggested a more modest traffic growth accompanied by slightly slower journey times in most time periods and considerably slower average journey times in the northbound morning peak.

    The M1 report covers a period from 2018 to 2021 and has a foreword from National Highways’ chief customer and strategy officer, Elliot Shaw, dated September 2024.

    The five-year pope for the M3 scheme is dated September 2025 while other reports have forewords dated September 2023, despite the DfT claiming that it was carrying out “assurance”.

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  • Crash death trial highlights smart motorway failings

    We will all have to be careful what we say about the ongoing criminal trial of Barry O’Sullivan, accused of causing the death of Pulvinder Dhillon by careless driving on the M4 in March 2022, but the overriding message that the public will see is that the technology on this stretch of smart motorway had not been working for some time at the time of the crash.

    The Daily Mail reports:

    A grandmother killed in a crash could still be alive today if safety technology on the smart motorway she broke down on hadn’t been ‘dangerously defective’, a court heard.

    This is the defence case. The prosecution case is that O’Sullivan was nevertheless responsible and the jury will hear the evidence and make up its mind.

    The main theme that the papers are focusing on – that the system to detect stopped vehicles in live lanes and warn other drivers about them was not working – has been known for some time.

    In fact, in May 2022, National Highways’ executive director for operations, Duncan Smith told me that the crash had occurred after the system had detected a stopped vehicle but an error had prevented an alert being raised.

    Pointing out that the vehicle had stopped in lane 4, Mr Smith said: ‘The M4 [incident] was a particular issue with some of our back office systems that were offline at the time – we’ve now corrected the system so that can’t happen. The scheme was still in operational acceptance so, as tragic as it was, this was a shortcoming of a system that [hadn’t yet] been handed into business as usual.’

    (more…)

  • Might National Highways turmoil keep POPEs locked up for longer?

    The Sunday Times story about National Highways chief executive Nick Harris being “effectively forced to quit after losing the confidence of board members” is an interesting one, not just in its own right, but in terms of where it leaves the ongoing suppression of smart motorway evaluation reports.

    It is said that Harris’ relationship with the National Highways board broke down over his handling of the speed camera debacle and the paper infers and implies a causal relationship.

    But it doesn’t seem too sure, saying that “sources have claimed” that was Harris pushed out “after” rather than because of losing board members’ confidence.

    The speed camera debacle is of course all about how reliable National Highways’ smart motorway technology really is and the further debacle over the 30-hour closure of one of the tunnels at the Dartford Crossing hasn’t helped.

    The BBC reports:

    It is something that should not happen – an oversized vehicle entering and damaging a tunnel at one of Britain’s busiest river crossings.

    “Baffling” and “unfathomable” were just two words used to describe experts’ confusion over how multiple safety systems failed to prevent the incident at the Dartford Crossing on 23 January.

    The driver caused extensive damage along the entire length of the tunnel to multiple pieces of safety equipment, causing it to close for 30 hours.

    National Highways says an investigation is under way, but MPs say motorists and residents are owed an apology as well.

    (more…)

  • Is Harris the fall guy for smart motorway failings?

    National Highways chief executive Nick Harris has announced what is said to be his decision to step down, but the obvious question is, did he jump, or was he pushed?

    The government owned company’s official announcement pointed out that he had held the role for five years, which is a decent stint, and he is reported to have just turned 60.

    But the suddenness of his departure does not exactly suggest proper succession planning. National Highways said he will stay in post “during a short transition period while the Board confirms interim leadership arrangements”, with recruitment for a permanent successor beginning in the spring.

    Harris said the start of the next five-year Road Investment Strategy (RIS) in April

    is the right moment for me to hand over to new leadership who will guide the organisation into its next chapter

    But the next couple of months, during which the new £24bn RIS will be finalised, are hardly an ideal time to be disrupting the organisation, and not the “smooth transition” promised.

    And although Harris has been in the job for the equivalent of a RIS period, the current interim period between RIS 2 and RIS 3 means his departure is very different from what happened when his predecessor, Jim O’Sullivan, announced his departure in August 2020.

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  • Release of POPEs (still) imminent

    With no real sign of the Department for Transport (DfT) allowing National Highways to release the 14 suppressed evaluation reports on smart motorways, the Guardian has picked up on the story:

    Road campaigners and motoring organisations have urged ministers to immediately release a series of “withheld” safety assessments on Britain’s smart motorways – some dating as far back as 2022

    With suggestions that the reports could be released at (last) Christmas having come to nothing, the DfT is still claiming there is nothing to see:

    The Department for Transport has said that 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.

    That last bit about a “broad case” is perhaps the key part of the whole article, suggesting that some POPEs may show that individual stretches of motorway have become less safe since the hard shoulder was removed, particularly as they have once again filled up with traffic.

    The article quotes Claire Mercer of Smart Motorways Kill, who has campaigned with me for the POPEs to be released, as saying that:

    If [the reports] showed good news, they’d release them.

    And links to this blog, in which I made a similar point:

    Ames was told that a total of 14 reports would eventually 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”.

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  • Will Lightwood cover for National Highways…again?

    The Department for Transport (DfT) has asked a member of its own board to carry out the “independent” review of the snafu that led to thousands of drivers on smart motorways being wrongly prosecuted, with no guarantee that the outcome will be published.

    It has also admitted that National Highways is still working with the police to implement “a Home Office-approved solution to this issue”.

    The “anomaly” identified was that, while there should be a delay between a variable speed shown on a motorway gantry changing and HADECs cameras detecting vehicles over the new limit, this has not always happened.

    The DfT has claimed that National Highways has identified approximately 2,650 total erroneous activations since 2021, but the terms of reference for the review go back to 2019, when the upgrade of cameras began, “to ensure that everyone who has been impacted is identified”.

    In a written ministerial statement on 16 December, roads minister Simon Lightwood, who has made a career of covering things up since arriving at the DfT, promised ‘an independent investigation into how this technical anomaly came about, to ensure that lessons can be learnt’. 

    Transport Heidi Alexander has now appointed

    Tracey Westall OBE, Non-Executive Director of DfT, to be the lead reviewer for this independent review.

    I’m sceptical of any government appointed review being described as “independent” but appointing a member of the DfT board to lead an independent review invites ridicule.

    The terms of reference include who knew what, when?

    (more…)

  • Safety strategy delay is a car crash

    With the government due to publish its long-delayed road safety strategy tomorrow and selected highlights being fed to newspapers, it’s worth going back to what the Times reported in August.

    Drivers over 70 who fail eye tests face ban in road safety overhaul

    Ministers are preparing the biggest shake-up of driving rules for two decades, including a reduction in the drink-drive limit

    The measures are expected to be contained in a new road safety strategy, due to be published in the autumn. 

    Today, five months on, the same paper reports basically the same story:

    Older drivers face eyesight tests, alcohol limits could be tightened and penalty points given for not wearing seatbelts under plans to improve road safety.

    The strategy is reported to have targets for cutting thousands of deaths and serious injuries over the next 10 years, which means, if we take them at their word, that a lot of deaths and serious injuries could have been prevented if it had come out a few months ago.

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  • A fine mess…continued

    With Parliament back in action, a Labour MP has asked an interesting follow-up question about the National Highways snafu that saw thousands of innocent drivers wrongly fined and many more speeding drivers escape prosecution.

    And got a total non-answer from the man who has made a ministerial career of keeping information from the public.

    Slough MP Tan Dhesi asked:

    … with reference to National Highways press release entitled Fix being rolled out after variable speed camera anomaly, published on 15 December, whether she has any plans to (a) contact insurance companies of or (b) provide assistance in any other way to affected drivers to help obtain a reassessment of their current premiums.

    It’s a good question but smart motorway cover-up minister Simon Lightwood made no attempt to answer it:

    Data has been provided to the police forces to enable them to start contacting those drivers who were impacted by this anomaly and allow the process of redress to begin. While we expect the number of drivers impacted by this issue to be very small, all those notified by the police will receive details on how to contact National Highways, who will consider the details of each claim on a case-by-case basis.

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  • Official: minister made up smart motorway “assurance” claim

    The Department for Transport (DfT) has admitted that a minister had no basis for his claim that he is suppressing a raft of evaluation reports on smart motorway schemes because an assurance process is “ongoing”.

    Roads minister Simon Lightwood made the claim in a letter to widow Claire Mercer, after she wrote to ask for the release of Post Opening Project Evaluation (POPE) reports that the DfT is preventing National Highways from publishing, including one on the stretch of all lane running smart motorway where her husband was killed in 2019.

    Although some of the reports are believed to have been completed in 2022, the DfT has claimed that they are still undergoing an “assurance” process; in fact, National Highways has said that the department needs ministers to agree a “comms handling plan” before they can be released.

    The POPE reports are expected to reveal the real-world performance of individual smart motorway schemes, including their safety and environmental records and their economic benefits, or otherwise.

    In his letter to Mercer, Lightwood wrote:

    National Highways does evaluate the economic impact after schemes have been operational for five years and we are committed to transparency, but this is a complex process, and it is right that we take the time to fully assure findings. This process is ongoing, and we will provide an update on publication in due course.

    But I asked the DfT what advice Lightwood was given on which he made the claim that the assurance process was “ongoing”. It admitted:

    no specific advice on the assurance process was provided to Ministers

    It added:

    …at the date of the letter I can confirm that Ministers were considering advice on the findings from the reports. As POPE reports contain a complex set of analysis, it is right that the process of assurance, governance and preparation prior to publication is undertaken thoroughly.

    Although this second part references “assurance”, it does so only in a “this is exactly the sort of thing we should be doing” sense, rather than claiming that such a thing is currently happening.

    It appears in any case that the process is now at the stage that the DfT describes as “governance and preparation prior to publication”, by which it means, working out how to spin what is obviously bad news.

    And the bigger picture is that, despite suggestions that the POPE reports might be published around Christmas, they remain suppressed.

    They must be really, really bad.