'Smart Motorways'

[zwk500]

Some motorways do have a verge. Indeed I saw a car pulled onto one on a motorway (the M6 though I forget exactly where) yesterday!

Many A roads have barriers too, or a verge you really don't want to pull onto because you'll sink (e.g. the Leighton Buzzard bypass, which is covered in signs telling you not to!)

The standards are changing all the time so it depends when the road was built, but certainly nowadays both A roads and Motorways seem to include a barrier about1m from the edge-of-carriageway line that limits the ability to pull over, this is somewhat offset by the hard central reservation that often gives a little room on one side before the concrete wall.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Problem here is that it favours those who are more financially well off either privately or commercially. To control traffic numbers fairly it has to be done by who needs to be on the road, not by who can afford to be on the road.

Almost nobody needs to be on the road in urban areas. Though that isn't really applicable to motorways.

 

[MKB]

Most coverage of this subject indulges only in emotive arguments. People take deaths on smart motorways to be evidence of failure, but they are not. They are only so if the risks on smart motorways exceed the risks of hard shoulders, and plenty of people have been killed on those.

Proper statisical analysis is the correct response along with looking at ways to mitigate risks.

It seems pretty obvious that the government is cancelling projects purely to save money and their sudden conversion to the anti-smart-motorway argument is a smokescreen.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Most coverage of this subject indulges only in emotive arguments. People take deaths on smart motorways to be evidence of failure, but they are not. They are only so if the risks on smart motorways exceed the risks of hard shoulders, and plenty of people have been killed on those.

Proper statisical analysis is the correct response along with looking at ways to mitigate risks.

It seems pretty obvious that the government is cancelling projects purely to save money and their sudden conversion to the anti-smart-motorway argument is a smokescreen.

It's undeniable, however, that a road with all the smart motorway features but a fixed hard shoulder will be the safest of all. The options aren't just "full smart motorway" vs "back the way it was". Most campaigners on the matter are campaigning for that hybrid as it'll be hugely safer than either.

 

[zwk500]

Proper statisical analysis is the correct response along with looking at ways to mitigate risks.

It seems pretty obvious that the government is cancelling projects purely to save money and their sudden conversion to the anti-smart-motorway argument is a smokescreen.

Totally agree with these 2 points.

It's undeniable, however, that a road with all the smart motorway features but a fixed hard shoulder will be the safest of all. The options aren't just "full smart motorway" vs "back the way it was". Most campaigners on the matter are campaigning for that hybrid as it'll be hugely safer than either.

Agree - Dynamic Hard Shoulder is a very good system when it's got experienced operators. The problem is at least in part because people have been driving since before they can clearly remember and don't want to learn how to drive the new roads.

 

[dosxuk]

Why would you drive to London if there was an HS2 train every 15 minutes and an Anytime Day Return from Manchester was say fifty quid?

The simple answer is because you need to travel at a time that's not convenient for the train operating companies, you need to take more than you can comfortably carry with you, you need to bring something that is prohibited on rail services, or your origin or destination are not well served by rail. That covers a significant amount of vehicle journeys.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The simple answer is because you need to travel at a time that's not convenient for the train operating companies, you need to take more than you can comfortably carry with you, you need to bring something that is prohibited on rail services, or your origin or destination are not well served by rail. That covers a significant amount of vehicle journeys.

True. But lots of people now are driving because the train is too expensive.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Apr 2023 ==

Agree - Dynamic Hard Shoulder is a very good system when it's got experienced operators. The problem is at least in part because people have been driving since before they can clearly remember and don't want to learn how to drive the new roads.

If you mean when you could switch on hard shoulder running, it worked very poorly because some people wouldn't use it, a bit like part time bus lanes (to me the bus lane is either needed and so should be 24/7, or isn't and so shouldn't exist - at quiet times the loss of road space doesn't matter) however it was a bit safer than all lane running as when it was switched on a 60 limit would be automatically applied.

 

[A0]

Permanent COVID lockdown? No, ta.

What we could and should do is implement high quality and affordable public transport and cycling facilities, copying Germany/Switzerland for the public transport and the Netherlands for the bikes. Then many car journeys will just evaporate.

Why would you drive to London if there was an HS2 train every 15 minutes and an Anytime Day Return from Manchester was say fifty quid?

(I can dream!)

However back to motorways, the variable speed limit system combined with sat-nav with congestion re-routeing (perhaps with some of the more silly rat-running designed out) does do pretty well to manage what capacity there is.

Bit in bold - balderdash.

The modal splits for the UK, Germany, Switzerland and Netherlands are as follows:

Car:

UK 86%
Germany 85.4%
Switzerland 77.7%
Netherlands 88.2%

Rail

UK 8.2%
Germany 9%
Switzerland 17.2%
Netherlands 8.8%

Bus

UK 5.8%
Germany 5.7%
Switzerland 5.1%
Netherlands 3%

Passenger transport modal split

www.eea.europa.eu

Germany's public transport use % share is about the same as the UK. The NL's isn't much different. Only Switzerland is an outlier, but it's an outlier against pretty much all of Europe.

 

[zwk500]

If you mean when you could switch on hard shoulder running, it worked very poorly because some people wouldn't use it, a bit like part time bus lanes (to me the bus lane is either needed and so should be 24/7, or isn't and so shouldn't exist - at quiet times the loss of road space doesn't matter) however it was a bit safer than all lane running as when it was switched on a 60 limit would be automatically applied.

Yes, Dynamic hard shoulder was good but used poorly. Nevertheless truckers are starting to get used to it, and being able to keep trucks in lanes 0 and 1 wihtout getting in the way of cars in lanes 2 and 3 is very helpful.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Apr 2023 ==

Bit in bold - balderdash.

The modal splits for the UK, Germany, Switzerland and Netherlands are as follows:

Germany's public transport use % share is about the same as the UK. The NL's isn't much different. Only Switzerland is an outlier, but it's an outlier against pretty much all of Europe.

What those numbers don't tell you is how different types of trip break down, or indeed what cycle modal share is like - e.g. NS reckons 1 in 4 Dutch railway journeys involve cycling at at least one end.

 

[dosxuk]

But lots of people now are driving because the train is too expensive.

I very much doubt those people are the cause of the need to upgrade the motorway network capacity that lead to all-lane-running.

 

[tomuk]

Yes, Dynamic hard shoulder was good but used poorly.

Yes you are correct in that assessment plus it also adds complication to educating, enforcing and obeying the rules on All Lane Running sections. It was the plan to upgrade all the existing DHS sections to ALR. DHS accounts for only 63 miles of 'Smart' Motorway with the largest part in the W Mids M6 J10a round to M42 J7. There is short section around Almondsbury Interchange north of Bristol plus M62 near Bradford and M1 around Luton.

 

[setdown]

I very much doubt those people are the cause of the need to upgrade the motorway network capacity that lead to all-lane-running.

I'm one of them! Used to always get the train long distance from the north-west to London, however with Avanti's insane pricing (and LNWR's exceptionally-poor timetabling), I now drive that regularly instead.

 

[HSTEd]

Building a sufficiently attractive public transport system to make a meaningful dent in car journeys, certainly the kind of car journeys that use motorways, would require enormous expenditure. Likely to be several percent of GDP in perpetuity. You could do it, certainly in England, but it would definitely not be cheap and involve fighting every transport union and interest group simultaneously.

Doing anything to get a significant number of HGV off the road would require similarly enormous expenditure, the alternatives simply are not economically attractive.

Given that planning paralysis (and court challenges by environmentalist groups) have rendered it essentially impossible to actually build anything, much less roads, in a reasonable time this leaves us with the proposals commonly made.

Which basically, either through road pricing or "changes of mindset", boil down to "the peasants shouldn't travel".
That is not a particularly acceptable solution to me either.
So we are stuck.

 

[A0]

I'm one of them! Used to always get the train long distance from the north-west to London, however with Avanti's insane pricing (and LNWR's exceptionally-poor timetabling), I now drive that regularly instead.

Though LNWR still seem to be running full trains - as the ex Euston to Crewe one I boarded at Rugby early Friday evening.

 

[johncrossley]

Bit in bold - balderdash.

The modal splits for the UK, Germany, Switzerland and Netherlands are as follows:

Car:

UK 86%
Germany 85.4%
Switzerland 77.7%
Netherlands 88.2%

Rail

UK 8.2%
Germany 9%
Switzerland 17.2%
Netherlands 8.8%

Bus

UK 5.8%
Germany 5.7%
Switzerland 5.1%
Netherlands 3%

Passenger transport modal split

www.eea.europa.eu

Germany's public transport use % share is about the same as the UK. The NL's isn't much different. Only Switzerland is an outlier, but it's an outlier against pretty much all of Europe.

These figures ignore cycling, which accounts for at least 20% in the Netherlands. Cycle trips replace most bus and some equivalent car trips in the UK.

 

[bramling]

The discussion about smart motorways has almost become religious - with otherwise sensible people refusing to listen to explanations or logic and instead focus on a dogmatic desire to just get rid of them. As the scientist says, people are blind to any advantages or improvements that they have, instead focusing on a small number of accidents - many of which are caused by inattentive drivers - which could happen in identical circumstances on many A roads but cause little to no outcry. Certainly the improved signage, detection and monitoring systems are a good reason to carry on rolling out smart motorways, even if there is further discussion on lane / hard shoulder usage.

I don’t think the comparison with A-roads is irrational. In general people expect an enhanced standard of safety on motorways, specifically a reduced likelihood of obstructions. This in terms feeds an expectation of better journey times and reliability compared to a standard A-road. It isn’t unreasonable to prefer the idea of A-roads being upgraded to motorway standard, rather than motorways being debased to A-road. The rest of the technology is essentially irrelevant, especially when because of the way it is used many drivers have little confidence in it.

Essentially we invented something actually quite good in the form of the motorway, and have now wrecked it - for the same reason many things have been wrecked in this country, namely that parts of this country are overpopulated.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Apr 2023 ==

Most coverage of this subject indulges only in emotive arguments. People take deaths on smart motorways to be evidence of failure, but they are not. They are only so if the risks on smart motorways exceed the risks of hard shoulders, and plenty of people have been killed on those.

Proper statisical analysis is the correct response along with looking at ways to mitigate risks.

It seems pretty obvious that the government is cancelling projects purely to save money and their sudden conversion to the anti-smart-motorway argument is a smokescreen.

The difference with a hard shoulder is you will probably have time to safely leave the vehicle. This is a lot more of a risk if you break down in a live lane. Most hard shoulder fatalities will be where someone has remained in their vehicle.

 

[Mogster]

I use the M6 jn 21a to M62 jn 12 section of 4 lane “smart” motorway pretty much daily. Would a full hard shoulder be the best option, obviously. Do I want to see a return to 3 lane running and the traffic crowding and delays that would cause, an emphatic no. That’s the bottom line for me, people that use these motorways regularly should be asked if they’d prefer 3 lane running in future.

In my opinion 4 lane running with wide lanes has vastly improved this section of the M62. Traffic is spread out across the road and the speed enforcement cameras also have a traffic calming effect, people stick to 70 and there’s much less lane changing as there’s no point, you can’t overtake anyone unless you want to risk a ticket. I've seen very few breakdowns in Lane 0, mostly people seem to make it to the refuge area. When Lane 0 is closed then people move out of it quite quickly now, you do have to pay attention, but that’s no bad thing imo. Lane management was shaky initially but appears much better now, I won’t go into the details as this post is already in TLDR territory…

As far as I can see these schemes are a cost effective way of adding capacity to the motorway network with little environmental downside. For whatever reason they now seem to be opposed with almost religious fervour by some quarters. It reminds me of opposition to HS2, I’ve even seen Twitter posts stating, we’ve stopped the smart motorways, we can stop HS2…

 

[Bletchleyite]

I use the M6 jn 21a to M62 jn 12 section of 4 lane “smart” motorway pretty much daily. Would a full hard shoulder be the best option, obviously. Do I want to see a return to 3 lane running and the traffic crowding and delays that would cause, an emphatic no. That’s the bottom line for me, people that use these motorways regularly should be asked if they’d prefer 3 lane running in future.

The variable speed limits (and even the proper 70 cap) make a huge difference on their own. I commuted on a section of the M25 before, during and after this was fitted (the section that has no hard shoulder running) and the difference was like night and day.

Given how appalling lane discipline is on 4 lane sections, I think the speed management is likely to make far more difference.

 

[tomuk]

The variable speed limits (and even the proper 70 cap) make a huge difference on their own. I commuted on a section of the M25 before, during and after this was fitted (the section that has no hard shoulder running) and the difference was like night and day.

Given how appalling lane discipline is on 4 lane sections, I think the speed management is likely to make far more difference.

It is a 77mph cap.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It is a 77mph cap.

I've no idea what it's actually set to, but the vast majority of drivers seem to do 70mph (either by speedometer, which is probably about 67, or by satnav which is actually 70), very few try their luck and go faster.

Interesting and surprising if you're right that they've used 10% rather than the usual guideline of 10% + 2mph, though on the vast majority of cars an indicated 80 will be about 77.

 

[Arkeeos]

If the government turns the M1 back into a regular motorway with a hard shoulder, it would improve the business case of the HS2 eastern leg.

 

[CyrusWuff]

Yes, Dynamic hard shoulder was good but used poorly. Nevertheless truckers are starting to get used to it, and being able to keep trucks in lanes 0 and 1 wihtout getting in the way of cars in lanes 2 and 3 is very helpful.

Sounds good in theory. In practice, you routinely find trucks elephant racing in lanes 1, 2 and 3 - particularly on the M25 (though that's ALR rather than DHSR) - so everyone else ends up in lane 4 if they want to exceed 56mph.

 

[MotCO]

Sounds good in theory. In practice, you routinely find trucks elephant racing in lanes 1, 2 and 3 - particularly on the M25 (though that's ALR rather than DHSR) - so everyone else ends up in lane 4 if they want to exceed 56mph.

There should be a law to the effect that if you cannot overtake unless you can clear the vehicle being overtaken within 15 seconds. Or the overtakee should temporarily slow to allow to be overtaken within this timeframe. It is ridiculous that lanes can be blocked for quite a time while lorries try to overtake. Until overtaking by lorries was banned on sections of the M11, queues often built up behind lorries trying to overtake.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Sounds good in theory. In practice, you routinely find trucks elephant racing in lanes 1, 2 and 3 - particularly on the M25 (though that's ALR rather than DHSR) - so everyone else ends up in lane 4 if they want to exceed 56mph.

TBH rather than lorries and coaches being banned from purely the rightmost lane, I'd ban them from all but lanes 1 and 2. There's no need for a parade of one doing 55.5mph, one doing 56mph and one doing 56.5mph, all it does is significantly reduce the bandwidth of the motorway. One overtake at a time is sufficient.

 

[zwk500]

TBH rather than lorries and coaches being banned from purely the rightmost lane, I'd ban them from all but lanes 1 and 2. There's no need for a parade of one doing 55.5mph, one doing 56mph and one doing 56.5mph, all it does is significantly reduce the bandwidth of the motorway. One overtake at a time is sufficient.

Agree, I'd change it to the effect that lorries are only allowed in the leftmost lane and the one adjacent to it (outside situations like junctions).

 

[telstarbox]

Some might think that unconfident drivers with no lane discipline should keep their unreliable rustbuckets off the motorway network - but who can say?

 

[zwk500]

Some might think that unconfident drivers with no lane discipline should keep their unreliable rustbuckets off the motorway network - but who can say?

Drivers who can't maintain lane discipline absolutely shouldn't be allowed on the motorway network, but policing it is another matter.

 

[D365]

If the government turns the M1 back into a regular motorway with a hard shoulder, it would improve the business case of the HS2 eastern leg.

you're a bit too optimistic here.

 

[cactustwirly]

Isn't it the case that the Autobahnen have an extremely poor safety record and UK motorways much better? Though the massive speed differentials are probably most of that, if you slapped a 130km/h limit on them (as per most of Europe) I suspect you'd see a considerable improvement.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 Apr 2023 ==



That's not the point.

While it's only 10mph slower, there's a considerable reduction in the amount of attention required to stay on top of driving at even a slightly slower speed. Thus, at 60, it's more likely the stopped car will be seen far enough in advance to be avoided safely and smoothly than at 70.



Why wouldn't you just install the "controlled motorway" kit and set a limit appropriate to the traffic? The only bad bit of smart motorways (unless you're a serial speeder) is the lack of hard shoulder - pretty much all of the rest of the concept is good. I was listening to one of the campaigners on LBC yesterday and they said the same thing - just put the hard shoulder back, keep all the rest of it and continue the rollout of other features.



You're talking about 50mph NSL and 40mph on singles? That's gross overkill. You're not Jeremy Vine in disguise are you?

I find smart motorways awful to drive on, lane discipline goes out of the window.
You then get cars in your Blindspot travelling the same speed as you, so it's difficult to move across to exit.

The M1 is hellish to drive on compared to the M40 which is bliss in comparison. The M4 west of Reading can be good, but seems to be infected with Middle lane drivers, so I end up staying on the inside lane for miles overtaking them.

 

[tomuk]

I find smart motorways awful to drive on, lane discipline goes out of the window.
You then get cars in your Blindspot travelling the same speed as you, so it's difficult to move across to exit.

The M1 is hellish to drive on compared to the M40 which is bliss in comparison. The M4 west of Reading can be good, but seems to be infected with Middle lane drivers, so I end up staying on the inside lane for miles overtaking them.

You must drive on a different bit of the M40 than I do because I find the lane discipline on it appalling with people dawdling about in all lanes leading to outer lane convoys.