The future of smart motorways

[c2R]

signs to tell you not to stop on the railway tracks at a level crossing....?

https://www.google.com/maps/@50.7969823 ... 312!8i6656

I can't say I've ever noticed one of those before - although I'll admit to being tickled by "Beware of Trains" https://www.google.com/maps/@52.118967, ... 312!8i6656

[JammyDodge]

I understand the reason for smart motorways. The plans were perfect, implementation was another thing. More education for drivers would have helped (could have sent out educational material through the dvla possibly?). I am a new driver and have recently driven on the M4 Smart motorway with variable shoulder (M32-M5) and around newport with ALR. I find them fine as I, of course have had to go through the rules for them when learning to drive. Personally, I think we should build more Smart motorways, however as the variable shoulder kind. This would allow better regulation of flow and reduce the effect of induced demand.

Just saying.
TLDR: I kinda like smart motorways

[trickstat]

signs to tell you not to stop on the railway tracks at a level crossing....?

https://www.google.com/maps/@50.7969823 ... 312!8i6656

I can't say I've ever noticed one of those before - although I'll admit to being tickled by "Beware of Trains" https://www.google.com/maps/@52.118967, ... 312!8i6656

I wonder if the no stopping part is largely aimed at pedestrians. The type who might bump into a friend heading the other way and want to stop and chat.

[Berk]

Or by the same token, a car driver...

Actually, it’s not always stopping for a chat. There are drivers who may block junctions (carelessly or otherwise) in queuing traffic too.

[darkcape]

The point isn't that a car stopped in lane 1 because it's run out of fuel is somehow not an emergency, that would be a very strange thing to argue.

Indeed, but I was originally asking how an emergency is avoided in response to this:

Is running out of fuel an emergency? No.

darkcape responded by saying "Running out of fuel is not an emergency" and you quoted my response to Big L who said "it's not an emergency because it is entirely predictable."

Those are pretty unambiguous statements.

I would completely support the idea that people should be fined, maybe even have their licence endorsed, if through negligence to ensure they have enough fuel they require a lane to be closed. I am just very confused as to how it would not be an emergency, which some seem are quite certain it would not be.

Sorry, my point was that some of the smart motorway fatalities had occurred due to people running out of fuel. And people arguing we should keep the hard shoulder "in case you run out of fuel". The point being a lot of these "perceived emergency stops on the hard shoulder" such as stopping to exchange details after an accident could have been avoided and lives not lost.

[Berk]

Would it not simply be easier to remind people exactly what sort of emergencies the ERA’s/lane 1 are designed for?? Unless the cars were immovable (actually, regardless of that), there was no need to get out and exchange details there and then.

Moving on to a safer place would’ve been far better.

[ManomayLR]

I understand the reason for smart motorways. The plans were perfect, implementation was another thing. More education for drivers would have helped (could have sent out educational material through the dvla possibly?). I am a new driver and have recently driven on the M4 Smart motorway with variable shoulder (M32-M5) and around newport with ALR. I find them fine as I, of course have had to go through the rules for them when learning to drive. Personally, I think we should build more Smart motorways, however as the variable shoulder kind. This would allow better regulation of flow and reduce the effect of induced demand.

Just saying.
TLDR: I kinda like smart motorways

Welcome to SABRE!

The CEO of Highways England did say that there will be no more of these dynamic hard shoulder smart motorways. They’re too complicated to use, though you or I may think otherwise.

[JammyDodge]

I understand the reason for smart motorways. The plans were perfect, implementation was another thing. More education for drivers would have helped (could have sent out educational material through the dvla possibly?). I am a new driver and have recently driven on the M4 Smart motorway with variable shoulder (M32-M5) and around newport with ALR. I find them fine as I, of course have had to go through the rules for them when learning to drive. Personally, I think we should build more Smart motorways, however as the variable shoulder kind. This would allow better regulation of flow and reduce the effect of induced demand.

Just saying.
TLDR: I kinda like smart motorways

Welcome to SABRE!

The CEO of Highways England did say that there will be no more of these dynamic hard shoulder smart motorways. They’re too complicated to use, though you or I may think otherwise.

I know. Its kind of sad. The largest issues would have been solved if they better educated and communicated with the public, as well as levelling very high fines, like £100 for 1st offence, £250 for 2nd offence, 6 points on your licence for 3rd offence. This sort of penalties would make the risk of disobeying the rules much greater for drivers. But hey, politics would make that impossible

[jervi]

I know. Its kind of sad. The largest issues would have been solved if they better educated and communicated with the public, as well as levelling very high fines, like £100 for 1st offence, £250 for 2nd offence, 6 points on your licence for 3rd offence. This sort of penalties would make the risk of disobeying the rules much greater for drivers. But hey, politics would make that impossible

Welcome to SABRE Jammy

Remember the majority of HGVs use Lane 1 almost all of the time. Therefor HGV drivers will be more prone to drive in said closed hard shoulder if they can't merge in time, or miss the signs. Also add to the fact that a vast amount of HGVs drivers are foreign, and they may not understand when or when not they are allowed to drive in a hard shoulder, making hard shoulders more dangerous on DHS, Controlled and Traditional Motorways.
How is it possible to educate international drivers about the rules around smart motorways, especially if (or when) other EU countries have also started to use DHS/ALR arrangements with different rules and arrangements. Also fines issued from camera are hard to collect from overseas. (Collection agency does have "parking" in the name, but also carries out charges for speed and restriction violations, such as driving in a closed lane/hs)

In cases where a restriction is breached, the European Parking Collection PLC has been authorised to act on our behalf in administering the issuing of Penalty Charges to the keepers of vehicles registered outside the UK. However, there is still difficulty in identifying the drivers of non-UK vehicles, principally because no legal framework exists to allow civil debts incurred in a foreign country to be transferred to the court system of the resident country.

[mikehindsonevans]

I understand the reason for smart motorways. The plans were perfect, implementation was another thing. More education for drivers would have helped (could have sent out educational material through the dvla possibly?). I am a new driver and have recently driven on the M4 Smart motorway with variable shoulder (M32-M5) and around newport with ALR. I find them fine as I, of course have had to go through the rules for them when learning to drive. Personally, I think we should build more Smart motorways, however as the variable shoulder kind. This would allow better regulation of flow and reduce the effect of induced demand.

Just saying.
TLDR: I kinda like smart motorways

Welcome to SABRE!

The CEO of Highways England did say that there will be no more of these dynamic hard shoulder smart motorways. They’re too complicated to use, though you or I may think otherwise.

That is a shame. The original M42 DHSR scheme (with ERAs sensibly close together) was built and implemented whilst I was working in Coventry. It worked (and still works well when we use it).

Mike

[ais523]

When the hard shoulder is open for non-emergency use on the M42, though, most drivers tend to avoid it; this is a particular issue on the M42 because the hard shoulder lane-drops at almost every junction (the only exception I can think of offhand is J5 southbound, and that was enough of a surprise that I'm wondering if it was a recent change). So in practice, the hard shoulder serves only to get traffic that's about to leave at the next junction out of the running lanes (and even some of that traffic doesn't move, possibly due to confusion about whether the lane is open).

The ERA spacing on the M42 is something that should probably be replicated elsewhere, though. I wonder what the statistics for live-lane breakdowns on the DHSR section of the M42 are, compared to other smart motorways (even DHSR), and to traditional motorways?

[Chris5156]

When the hard shoulder is open for non-emergency use on the M42, though, most drivers tend to avoid it; this is a particular issue on the M42 because the hard shoulder lane-drops at almost every junction (the only exception I can think of offhand is J5 southbound, and that was enough of a surprise that I'm wondering if it was a recent change). So in practice, the hard shoulder serves only to get traffic that's about to leave at the next junction out of the running lanes (and even some of that traffic doesn't move, possibly due to confusion about whether the lane is open).

Conversely, on the M1 between Luton and Milton Keynes, the "through-junction running" system means that a fourth permanent lane opens up through each junction, traffic joining the motorway merges into a four-lane road, and then four lanes merge back into three. The unnecessary extra merging is hugely disruptive to traffic flow and works very much against the idea that traffic moves more smoothly and steadily through a Smart Motorway.

I remain absolutely convinced that dynamic hard shoulder running is a failed experiment. Whatever becomes of All Lane Running, following the current storm about it, dynamic hard shoulders are not the answer.

[DB617]

Of course the M42 turned out to be a terrible place to experiment with a motorway requiring a higher level of driver discipline. The West Midlands are not known for excellent driver behaviour. My first run up to Leeds in my old blunder bus was the first, second, third, fourth time I encountered German cars (always) doing the lane cut from 1-4-1 between successive junctions. Total disregard for other road users and their lives. The M1 experiments were probably far more valid and I'd say West Yorks would have been a better candidate than Birmingham any day.

[owen b]

When the hard shoulder is open for non-emergency use on the M42, though, most drivers tend to avoid it

I used the M42 southbound from J7 to J6 at the weekend when the hard shoulder was clearly indicated to be for emergency use only and just in that short stretch I saw two vehicles driving down the hard shoulder.

I remain absolutely convinced that dynamic hard shoulder running is a failed experiment. Whatever becomes of All Lane Running, following the current storm about it, dynamic hard shoulders are not the answer.

I agree entirely. Every time I drive from Luton to the M6 the contrast between the part time hard shoulder running J10-13 and the permanent all lanes running J16-19 is clear. All lanes running is far superior in my view. Having said that, to me as a layman, the gaps between emergency refuges seem excessively long.

I appreciate the point made upthread that part time hard shoulder running can't just be converted to NSL all lanes running at low cost because some sections are outside the safety parameters for 70mph, but I do sometimes wonder if a temporary solution would be to convert cheaply to all lanes running and for those (I imagine fairly short) sections which are not to 70mph standard simply apply a permanent 60 limit. I think I'd rather have permanent all lanes running with a compromised speed limit than the current confusion and frustration that part time hard shoulder running causes.

[Jeni]

I think I'd rather have permanent all lanes running with a compromised speed limit than the current confusion and frustration that part time hard shoulder running causes.

Be careful saying things like that on here, the motorists rights activists will have you!

[Stevie D]

Conversely, on the M1 between Luton and Milton Keynes, the "through-junction running" system means that a fourth permanent lane opens up through each junction, traffic joining the motorway merges into a four-lane road, and then four lanes merge back into three. The unnecessary extra merging is hugely disruptive to traffic flow and works very much against the idea that traffic moves more smoothly and steadily through a Smart Motorway.

That really confused me – what is the point of having an extra lane through the junction, where traffic flows are lower, and not between the junctions, where traffic flows are higher?

[owen b]

Conversely, on the M1 between Luton and Milton Keynes, the "through-junction running" system means that a fourth permanent lane opens up through each junction, traffic joining the motorway merges into a four-lane road, and then four lanes merge back into three. The unnecessary extra merging is hugely disruptive to traffic flow and works very much against the idea that traffic moves more smoothly and steadily through a Smart Motorway.

That really confused me – what is the point of having an extra lane through the junction, where traffic flows are lower, and not between the junctions, where traffic flows are higher?

In the scenario that there isn't the extra running lane through the junction but the hard shoulder is running, the hard shoulder running turns into a lane drop onto the off slip, then you don't have hard shoulder running through the junction, which means that traffic on the hard shoulder staying on the mainline has to move into lane two, causing weaving with traffic leaving the motorway and a bottleneck through the junction. Hard shoulder running doesn't work where slips leave or join a mainline as you don't have a hard shoulder across the slip road join (I dread to think what the lane markings would look like if you tried to paint a "dummy" hard shoulder across the join). To avoid this scenario, the M1 J10-13 scheme has permanent all lane running through the junctions, supposedly reducing weaving and increasing capacity at the junctions. Except that at least in my experience it doesn't really work very well.

All of which I think is further evidence for Chris5156's view which I share that "dynamic hard shoulder running is a failed experiment".

[jusme]

Stafford MP Jeremy Lefroy seems to be advocating DHSR...

When the smart motorway was being proposed I was under the impression we were going to get something similar to the M42 where it is used as a three-lane motorway some of the time and then four lanes at rush hour
...
Clearly it has become another version where all lanes are running.

https://www.expressandstar.com/news/tra ... t-says-mp/

[jervi]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOyUvvWucx0
Is this anything to do with stopped vehicle detection on SMs? Seems a bit too simple, if it was this then surely it could of been rolled out to the majority of ALR SMs already since they have 100% static camera coverage.

[M4 Cardiff]

TBPH I'd be be scared witless if I had to stop a vehicle on an ALR Smart Motorway in free-flowing traffic. I'm not sure how quickly the stopped vehicle detection system kicks in, but unlikely to be quick enough to protect you for that short while whilst you stop and bail out. And drivers door on the same side as unimpeded Lane 2 traffic (I'm not really flexible enough anymore to climb across) would be significantly unpleasant also.