Smart Motorway has become shorthand for All Lane Running that is a motorway where the hard shoulder is converted into a running lane which usually includes gantries with variable limits. However there are further types under the Smart Motorway heading, DHSR - Dynamic Hard Shoulder Running, this include the original schemes around Birmingham on the M6 and M42, where the hard shoulder is used depending on traffic load, the last variant Controlled Motorways just has variable speed limits but retains the hard shoulder examples include various sections of the M25.
-
Our new ticketing site is now live! Using either this or the original site (both powered by TrainSplit) helps support the running of the forum with every ticket purchase! Find out more and ask any questions/give us feedback in this thread!
'Smart Motorways'
- Thread starter dangie
- Start date
- Status
Sponsor Post - registered members do not see these adverts; click here to register, or click here to log in
R
RailUK Forums
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Agreed. They are like dual carriageway A roads, basically.
I have advocated for a while that car National Speed Limit should be reduced to the same as vans, i.e. 50-60-70 rather than 60-70-70. If this was done these could gain specific 60 limits in line with this until converted back to hard shoulders, or in some (mostly urban) cases keep the 60, which I think feels safer on them.
An accident at 60mph is still sufficient to kill if there is a stationary vehicle in the way.
Given your suggestion for restoration of a continuous hard shoulder, it would most likely need a permanent 50mph speed limit to retain at least some of the capacity lost.
A 50mph speed limit would tick the safety and capacity box. At the same time, the mooted 40mph speed limit for single carriageway roads could similarly be introduced.
dangie
Established Member
From my experiences of driving the Smart Motorway sections of the M6 there always appears to be far less vehicles using the inside lane compared to lanes 2-3-4. I deduct from this that many drivers do not feel comfortable using this lane.
Unfortunately that happens on motorways with hard shoulders as well. It is because people think that lane 1 of a four lane motorway is for lorries, and they don't like pulling back in when there is clear road ahead.
There are some people who set their car up for cruise control at 70mph and think that means they can sit in lane 3 continuously with no regard to other traffic. When people do that it causes a fair degree of congestion and is unsafe because it either forces traffic out from the inside lanes to overtake in lane 4 or forms a 'rolling roadblock'.
Many of the benefits of four lane motorways are diminished by the way people choose to drive in them.
Last edited:
william.martin
On Moderation
I totally agree with that - they just cause misery everywhere. Only a short while ago my holiday was delayed by a few hours while diversions where put in place on the M1 northbound.At last someone has seen sense and scrapped plans for future Smart Motorways.
Unfortunately existing ones will remain, plus those nearing completion.
Never should have been allowed in the first place.
New smart motorway plans being scrapped
Plans to have more stretches without hard shoulders are cancelled amid cost and safety concerns.www.bbc.co.uk
It was a fatal accident and no surprise why - the victim broke down and had a HGV go straight into the back of them.
The M25 is the only smart motorway that I use regularly but the issue with lane 1 is the number of lane drops which necessitate a lane change. On a typical journey this happens at the M1, A1, A10, M11 and A12.
ABB125
Established Member
That's theoretically due to the volume of traffic leaving or joining at those junctions.
In practice, it's often because National Highways can't be bothered to put 4 lanes through the junction, even if the traffic volumes justify it. For example, the recently smartified section of the M4: most of the junctions still only have 3 lanes going through, despite originally being planned for 4
And it would be better if there was better advance signing for lane drops. For example, after a junction when the carriageway returns to four lanes after a lane drop, can there not be a sign which says '4 lanes for the next 10 miles' or similar with occasional reminders, and an advance alert of a lane drop - e.g. 'Motorway drops to 3 lanes in 2 miles'
For "can't be bothered to", substitute "physically can't" or "can't afford to".
ABB125
Established Member
Or "not doing the job properly (as usual)"...
(Ignoring any arguments as to whether or not smartification is doing the job properly!)
swt_passenger
Veteran Member
- Joined
- 7 Apr 2010
- Messages
- 32,909
I believe the term “smart motorway” has been retrospectively applied to existing parts of routes with variable speed limits. The terminology wasn’t used when they first appeared eg on the western side of the M25. That was in the late 90s IIRC?
Given that this happens regularly on non-smart motorways with full Hard shoulders and no gantry Speed signs, I deduct instead that many drivers are just lazy.
I used to find people in lane 2 at 60mph frequently with no reason at all not to be in lane 1, and such little traffic around that I could move from lane 1 to lane 3 safely at 70mph to overtake them and then move all the way back to lane 1.
Back on topic, I didn't have any problem with VSL or Dynamic Hard shoulder running, as traffic would start bunching before they opened the Hard Shoulder and so the risk of a collision was fairly low. However I didn't like the idea of ALR as the margin for error at free flowing speeds is that bit lower. I do understand the comparison with non-HS HQDCs but A roads are that bit lower standard than motorways and so people do tend to drive just a shade slower or more sensibly.
Robin Procter
Member
.... Yep. Back in the days before the awful 70mph speed restrictions I had a blow-out at over 100mph on the M1 in a BMW rearwheel drive. It was just a matter of not touching the brakes and letting her drift onto the hard shoulder. The point is that such things simply happen.
Halwynd
Member
I remember once driving down the M61 near Chorley during 2001 in a company pool car (which reminds me of the car: a Nissan Primera GT carrying a strange green pearlescent paint that appeared to change to purple in certain lighting - it was awful!) when suddenly I heard a loud scraping noise at the rear. I immediately pulled onto the hard shoulder and found the rear bumper unit hanging off.
I was thankful for the hard shoulder that day. Had I been travelling along a so-called smart motorway - I'm dubious of anything that is prefixed 'smart' these days - then perhaps I could have continued to a refuge, but at the same time run the risk of the bumber falling off completely with potentially terrible consequences for vehicles behind me.
Luckily, all of my motorway driving is northwards these days, which means I don't have to use these unsmart motorways. But if I had to travel southwards then I'd be likely to pass through Cheshire and I very much find myself agreeing with 'Altrincham' above - I too would try to avoid the M6.
All this started with Ruth Kelly when she was Transport Secretary, and made much worse by Philip Hammond and Mike Penning when they allowed further more extensive development of the system in 2010. But these here today, gone tomorrow politicians are only interested in the cheapest, quickest tick box ideas, and bugger the consequences on everyone else.
I was thankful for the hard shoulder that day. Had I been travelling along a so-called smart motorway - I'm dubious of anything that is prefixed 'smart' these days - then perhaps I could have continued to a refuge, but at the same time run the risk of the bumber falling off completely with potentially terrible consequences for vehicles behind me.
Luckily, all of my motorway driving is northwards these days, which means I don't have to use these unsmart motorways. But if I had to travel southwards then I'd be likely to pass through Cheshire and I very much find myself agreeing with 'Altrincham' above - I too would try to avoid the M6.
All this started with Ruth Kelly when she was Transport Secretary, and made much worse by Philip Hammond and Mike Penning when they allowed further more extensive development of the system in 2010. But these here today, gone tomorrow politicians are only interested in the cheapest, quickest tick box ideas, and bugger the consequences on everyone else.
Western Sunset
Established Member
Having once broken down on the M25 late at night, I was thankful it was on a section with a proper hard shoulder...
Lost property
On Moderation
- Joined
- 2 Jun 2016
- Messages
- 734
I was never aware they could actually do their job properly in the first place.
If ever there was an organisation whose operations and personnel define the term "unfit for purpose " it has to be National Highways (the name may have changed whilst I am typing this of course).
I don't, and never have, liked "smart " motorways where there is no hard shoulder in case of emergency. I had to go into a refuge on the M5 for a precautionary stop and check and getting in was bad enough, getting out, a nightmare. There simply isn't enough room to accelerate to the speed of the traffic and then join when it's clear to do so.
A friend of mine has been into a couple...in an HGV....his opinion cannot be printed or repeated on here.
ABB125
Established Member
There doesn't need to be - you're meant to use the emergency phone in the area to inform the control centre of your presence. They will then use the electronic signs to close lane 1, thus allowing you to exit safely.
Well, at least in theory...
Never mind the AA - try Rule 278 of the Highway Code. Failing to do this leaves you open (probably - legal opinion reqd) to being charged with an offence under Section 36 of the Road Traffic Act 1988.
This perfectly demonstrates the main problem with Smart Motorways - users. For a start it seems most are about as likely to have read and digested Finnegan's Wake recently as the Highway Code or relevant provisions of RTA 1988...
Which, in rational risk-management terms, is... not rational. It might be a more pleasurable drive, but even if smart motorway sections present more mortal risk than regular sections*, your more pleasurable drive is still something like 4-7 times more likely to end in death if you make the same journey on a single carriageway A-road.
It makes about as much sense as people vowing to switch to driving following a train crash. It may be understandable in human terms, but is the opposite of logical if you're interested in maximising the probability of staying alive.
*The evidence on this remains ambiguous at best. Motorways of whatever stripe are thankfully so safe that there is still too little data to draw statistically robust conclusions one way or the other on many hypotheses. Part of the problem is that the sections of motorway which have had Smart adaptations of one sort or another are disproportionately likely to be very heavily used stretches for which the KSI (Killed or Seriously Injured) rates were above average a priori.
It is noteworthy that in all the contributions to this thread that I can see so far, precisely zero of them explore the actual hard evidence. It's all about people's feelings or intuition or anecdote.
For what it's worth, after cumulative 10s of thousands of miles of driving through various Smart Motorway sections I don't like the permanent all-lane-running ones; the dynamic hard shoulder ones are mostly a blessing liberating me from the near 100% risk of wasting cumulatively days or even weeks of waking life in queues over time. My likes or otherwise are irrelevant to the unresolved question of the risk profile though.
As a parting shot it should never be forgotten what a dangerous place the hard shoulder on a conventional motorway is. Many are killed on them. Go and look at the statistics.
Last edited:
Western Sunset
Established Member
But remember all the years (and hours spent in queues) in creating these "smart" motorways in the first place. The delays on the M3 seemed never-ending with all the construction work, narrow lanes, and switching from one side of the road to the other. Has all that been quantified, or is that just folk's feelings, intuition or anecdotes?
What do you want for it, a rebate?
Completely with you on that. I suspect the answer to whether that's been quantified is probably not, and if it was, nobody considered it relevant to weigh that cost against the benefits.
The absolutely stupid way (coning off 37 continuous miles of motorway for 4 years, with 679 consecutive overnight closures of great lengths of it) these works are carried out is one reason I'm personally not bothered that further schemes have been halted. With only decades of life expectancy left I probably won't last long enough to get back the time wasted stuck in the never-ending roadworks and wild-goose-chase overnight closures.
I'd still like to see a quantitative analysis though.
The recent announcement just strikes me as a convenient way for the govt to do yet more cheese-paring of capex at the same time as capitulating to populist lobbying. Rational analysis is so last-century.
This. 100%. The government has no creative ideas, all it can do is say 'No' to things.
Indeed, a billion pounds of construction work cancelled saves some money and doesn't help the construction workers.
deltic
Established Member
- Joined
- 8 Feb 2010
- Messages
- 3,495
The evidence shows that Smart Motorways are safer than conventional ones. The problem is the appalling driving standards of many drivers. Having been in one of the M25 control rooms and talking to the traffic officers is an eye opener. The people who regularly run out of fuel on the motorway, the drivers whose vehicle is obviously struggling but who still carry on past slip roads, and then come to halt in a running lane and those who have a minor bump in a running lane and come to an immediate halt rather than continuing and pulling over when it is safe to do so. As highlighted by others people don't seem to have any problem driving on A roads with no hard shoulder so why are motorways an issue.
What is the definition of a conventional motorway ?
One that does not have either VSL, DHS or ALR. It will have Hard shoulders that may or may not be discontinuous and will have at most the yellow Advisory Speed Limit signs, if it has gantry speed signage at all.
Sir Felix Pole
Established Member
The AA and RAC support the move, and indeed want the removal of the existing smart stretches. As professional motoring organisations, presumably they have weighed all the evidence - not least out of concern for their patrol staff. I agree with them - the M6 between Stafford and Stoke in heavy traffic is absolutely nerve-wracking with its very high volume of HGVs.
- Status