National Highways has failed to get stopped vehicle detection (SVD) technology working properly on any section of all lane running (ALR) smart motorway, including schemes that it pledged not to open without the technology, Highways can reveal.
Last month the Office of Rail and Road disclosed that the SVD was not meeting performance requirements for detection rate (80%), speed of detection (within 20 seconds) or false alerts (less than 15%) at either a national or regional level.
It has now told Highways that no retrofit scheme has achieved the performance levels that would allow it to transition to ‘business as usual’ operation and that work is ongoing to achieve this.
National Highways has confirmed this. A spokesperson told Highways: ‘As of mid-January 2023, none of the retrofit and new ALR schemes have fully transitioned to business as usual as they are not yet meeting all of the core performance requirements.’
The spokesman added: ‘By the end of June 2023, we will aim to have met the performance specification for SVD where it is in place, in a way which our operators can manage.’
The company has said it considers SVD to be ‘in place’ when, having been tested at 60mph, it is being used by its control centres to set signs and signals, albeit subject to ongoing calibration.
However, it also applies the definition even if the system’s performance is so poor that it cannot hand the system over to business as usual.
In fact, the revelation that the technology has not passed ‘operational acceptance testing’ means that some have argued the government-owned company effectively missed the target set out in its 2021 first year progress report on the Government’s smart motorways action plan to ‘complete the installation’ of SVD across its ‘existing’ ALR network by September 2022.
In the foreword to the first year progress report, National Highways chief executive Nick Harris wrote: ‘We had already committed to ensuring the [SVD] system was fitted on all lane running smart motorways by March 2023. Today we commit to complete that work six months early, by the end of September 2022.’
However, last year, as the deadline approached, with National Highways having installed SVD on around half of its existing ALR network but having failed to get it to work properly, it changed its wording to having the technology ‘in place’.
Mr Harris wrote: ‘By the end of September 2022 we will have stopped vehicle detection (SVD) technology in place on every existing all lane running smart motorway.’
This definition does not require the technology to be working adequately, despite traffic running at the national speed limit on motorways without a hard shoulder, possibly indefinitely.
The ORR stated in its report that ‘roll-out installation has been completed to plan’. However, Alan Hames, an experienced traffic engineer who gave evidence to the recent parliamentary inquiry into smart motorways, told Highways: ‘There is no question, the installation of the radar detection system remains incomplete.’
National Highways also said it would not open new sections of ALR smart motorway without the technology.
The ORR has told Highways that new sections of ALR smart motorway ‘can open for traffic (at national speed limits) with SVD in place, but with calibration ongoing to achieve the required performance levels’.
The concern is that the public is being given the impression that SVD has been installed and is working satisfactorily, even when it is not, critics have said. In one case, National Highways even stated publicly and wrote to an MP to say that such works were 'finished' - despite the scheme not reaching its benchmarks yet.
ORR said: 'We appreciate there is scope for confusion between what might be considered the common meaning of some words or phrases, and the specific meaning that National Highways attaches in this context.'
It also told Highways that since the pledge was made three ALR schemes have opened with SVD ‘in place’. These are the M27 junctions 4-11, the M6 junctions 13-15, and the M4 junctions 3-12 (above).
It confirmed none of these schemes ‘have yet achieved the required performance levels across all of the three key criteria that would allow them to complete the handover to business as usual operation’.
The M4 upgrade opened in stages, with the section between junctions 8/9 and 12 opening in late 2021 and the stretch between junctions 3 and 8/9 opening last month.
In late 2021, National Highways wrote to local MP Sir John Redwood about the section between junctions 8/9 and 12. It stated: ‘This section of the M4 motorway upgrade is finished.’
In February 2022, National Highways published an update headed ‘Work between Junctions 8/9 and 12 complete.’ It stated: ‘Our upgrade of the M4 motorway between junctions 8/9 and 12 is finished’.
The following month, Pulvinder Dhillon was killed on the same section of ALR motorway when the car she was travelling in came to a halt in lane four and was hit by a van.
National Highways’ executive director for operations, Duncan Smith subsequently told Highways that the SVD system had detected the stationary car but that there 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’.
He added: ‘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.'
Jack Cousens, AA head of roads policy told Highways: 'We have consistently made the point over the last decade that these smart motorways should not even have been contemplated, let alone constructed, without accurate tried and tested technology and adequate emergency refuge areas, already in place.
‘It is preposterous to base highway policy on constructing sub-standard non-smart motorways and then retrofitting safety elements that should have been there in the first place whilst stating that this is the short-coming of a system that hadn’t been handed into business as usual.
‘Road users deserve much better protection. It is time to revert to the relative safety of the hard shoulder.’
National Highways told Highways: ‘Over the coming months and years, wherever possible, we will strive to exceed [the SVD system’s] performance expectations.’
Chief digital and information officer Richard Pedley said: ‘National Highways has well established processes in place to safely manage the opening of schemes at 70mph.
‘All lane running schemes are designed to, and do, operate safely without the need for SVD technology. It was introduced as an enhancement to the system of inter-related features to help further reduce the risks associated with live lane stops, enabling us to respond quicker through the setting of ‘report of obstruction’ warning signs, setting of a Red X signal to close one or more lanes, adjusting speed limits and deploying traffic officers.
‘It’s right that road users expect high performance standards, we welcome recent observations from the ORR that the roll-out of SVD technology will have improved the detection of stopped vehicles, with a further likely positive impact on reducing the duration of live lane stops.’
