Transport Insights

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

Author

Chris Ames

Tag: smart motorways

  • 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…)

  • 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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  • 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.

  • Did Lightwood exaggerate speed camera fix?

    The Daily Mail has reported that National Highways is some way off identifying and implementing a permanent solution to the issue that led to thousands of drivers being wrongly clocked for speeding on smart motorways.

    The paper picks up on yesterday’s statement from roads minister Simon Lightwood and in particular the revelation that the problem was fully identified in October and prosecutions halted, adding that “speed camera enforcement on smart motorways was secretly switched off two months ago”.

    Lightwood also said:

    A Home Office-approved solution to this issue has now been agreed. National Highways will be working with the police to allow them to implement this solution as a priority.

    However, the Mail reports:

    But it has emerged that National Highways still does not fully understand how the fault occurred and a permanent solution won’t be found until next year. 

    In the meantime, when the camera enforcement system is switched back on, National Highways will have to provide daily updates to police on the times when they believe the camera system is not functioning properly.

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  • Lightwood makes light of speed camera snafu

    Roads minister Simon Lightwood has claimed that drivers who break the law “can expect to be punished”, despite confirming that tens of thousands of drivers have got away with speeding offences because of National Highways’ latest technology failure on smart motorways.

    In written parliamentary statement, Lightwood confirmed, but sought to play down, the fact that an “anomaly” over the settings on variable speed limit enforcement cameras occurred approximately 2,650 times over four years, leading to a similar number of wrongful prosecutions.

    But that’s only half the story. As Lightwood told MPs:

    Independently, the National Police Chiefs’ Council took action to instruct all affected police forces to cancel wider prosecutions related to infringements in progress, regardless of whether they were impacted by this issue. As a result, tens of thousands of people’s speed awareness courses are being cancelled, and thousands of historic fixed penalty notices and criminal justice prosecutions are being discontinued.

    Lightwood also explained why his department had covered the problem up for around three months, without explicitly stating that it had done so:

    Throughout this process, I have been clear with all partners that we must ensure our road network remains safe. We therefore took the decision, following a safety assessment from National Highways, not to undermine public confidence in enforcement and risk impacting driver behaviour before we had a solution to this issue approved and ready to roll out.

    He ended his statement with an assertion that the facts have proven to be wholly untrue.

    Compliance with the law is being enforced in a variety of ways across our roads, as has always been the case. If you break the law, you can expect to be punished.

    As I commented yesterday, if tens of thousands of drivers breaking the law cannot be prosecuted because smart motorway technology is, once again, not up to the job, that is a major safety issue.

  • National Highways races to play down speed camera cock-up

    The revelation that thousands of drivers have been wrongly prosecuted because speed cameras on smart motorways and elsewhere had the wrong settings is a major embarrassment for National Highways, which is why it is, typically, trying to play it down.

    I’m not sure it will boost confidence that the issue has only been admitted by the government-owned company and the Department for Transport (DfT) after a so-called fix has been put in place, but here is the headline on the National Highways press release:

    Fix being rolled out after variable speed camera anomaly

    As the Daily Mail points out:

    The scandal will yet again raise concerns about the safety of smart motorways, which are stretches of road where variable speed camera technology is used to manage traffic flow and reduce congestion.

    It’s fair enough to point out that too rigid enforcement doesn’t put anyone at risk but the story feeds into the general problem that, as the draft of the third Road Investment Strategy put it:

    National Highways should not be over-reliant on technology, for example drawing on insights from the use of cameras and stopped vehicle detection when considering driver safety and welfare.

    This is code for saying that the technology on smart motorways isn’t up to the job.

    (more…)

  • DfT adds insult to death and injury on smart motorways

    There’s a good write-up in the (Sheffield) Star of the current situation over the release of the 14 evaluation reports on smart motorways that ministers are sitting on, with the Department for Transport’s (DfT) excuses not fooling anyone.

    It features Claire Mercer’s reaction to the DfT being unable to say that there is anything other than a  made-up “assurance” process to justify the ongoing suppression of the Post Opening Project Evaluations (POPEs).

    The reality, as National Highways told me, is that ministers have to agree a “comms handling plan” before telling us how (un)safe the projects are.

    Speaking to The Star, Claire – founder of the Smart Motorways Kill Campaign – scolded the DfT and said she believes the “only reason” for the delays can be that roads minister Simon Lightwood is “merely preparing to spin what are likely to be very negative findings.”

    The Star does include Mercer’s allegation that Lightwood lied to her by falsely claiming that an assurance process is “ongoing”:

    (more…)

  • Minister lied to me, smart motorway widow says

    Claire Mercer of Smart Motorways Kill has also concluded that the claim that the Department for Transport (DfT) is still “assuring” 14 smart motorway evaluation reports going back three years is a fiction – and that roads minister Simon Lightwood lied to her about this.

    Mercer, whose husband Jason was killed, along with Alexandru Murgeanu, on a smart motorway stretch of the M1 in 2019, co-organised the protest outside the DfT last month calling for the Post Opening Project Evaluation (POPE) reports to be released.

    Lightwood wrote to her at that time to defend the suppression of the reports, saying:

    …it is right that we take the time to fully assure findings. This process is ongoing

    As I wrote on Monday, when challenged over the “process” by Mercer’s MP, Sarah Champion, Lightwood resorted to claiming that a “wider assurance”, rather than the formal assurance for each scheme was happening. This is clearly a fiction.

    Mercer’s solicitors, Irwin Mitchell, also wrote to the DfT to challenge the process. It told them that the reports:

    are currently completing the final governance and approval stages

    adding:

    it is right that the department take the time to fully understand and assure findings prior to publication

    Again, the pretence that a formal assurance process is happening has evaporated.

    Mercer has seen through this and has not forgotten what Lightwood told her. She said:

    (more…)

  • Minister fibs to keep smart motorway failings secret

    Roads minister Simon Lightwood has admitted that no genuine assurance process is taking place that would justify his cover-up of National Highways’ evaluations of smart motorways.

    He has responded (sort of) to another question from fellow Labour MP Sarah Champion about the 14 Post Opening Project Evaluation (POPE) reports on smart motorways that the Department for Transport (DfT) is suppressing.

    Judging from Lightwood’s determination to hide these reports until he works out how to spin them, you might imagine that they show that the safety, economic benefits and environmental impact of individual schemes are not great

    Asked:

    what the assurance processes are under which the Post Opening Project Evaluation (POPE) of Major Schemes are conducted

    Lightwood replied:

    National Highways follows its established “Analytical Assurance Framework” for assuring POPE reports, which includes fourth line independent external expert analytical assurance from DfT.

    As these are complex reports it is right that my officials take the time to provide summary advice of these reports in the round and undertake wider assurance to advise me on the quality of collective findings.

    The first part appears to be untrue as National Highways does not have an analytical assurance framework that is separate from the DfT’s framework, but this is probably irrelevant as Lightwood is no longer claiming that this is still happening.

    Instead he has made up a completely new process under which his officials supposedly group together a whole bunch of POPE reports to summarise them and carry out a fictional “wider evaluation”. Implicitly, he is admitting that no formal assurance process is being carried out.

    To be fair, he is not actually saying either that an informal “wider assurance” process is happening, just that it is right that it should happen.

    Of course, the point about such a process is that concern for the “quality of collective findings” does not mean that the individual reports need any further assurance before they can be released.

    We are back to the reality – that ministers are working out to spin – or bury – the bad news.