National Highways is considering retrofitting around 200 new emergency areas on smart motorways during the next roads period, but this could fall short of demands from MPs.
The Transport Select Committee has called for the key safety measure to be spaced every three-quarters of a mile apart.
As Highways has reported, despite agreeing with a recommendation from the Transport Select Committee that the orange off-line laybys should be no more than a mile apart and ideally at three-quarter mile intervals, both the Department of Transport and National Highways are working towards a spacing standard that includes other 'places of relative safety' (PRS).
Appearing before the committee last week, National Highways chief executive Nick Harris confirmed that the 150 new ‘places of relative safety’ that the Government has committed to installing by 2025 ‘are all emergency areas, all painted orange and set off to the side of the carriageway’.
Asked to estimate how many new emergency areas would be required after 2025 to reach the standard, Mr Harris said: ‘That will be part of the work we are developing for the RIS 3 [2025-30] initial business plan.’
Baroness Vere added: ‘Ballpark—a couple of hundred more.’
However, Mr Harris again confirmed that the standard to which National Highways is working ‘does refer to places of relative safety’, which transport minister Baroness Vere said also includes motorway service areas and new or existing hard shoulder between junctions or on slip roads.
It appears that MPs now feel that they a clear on the distinction between the two concepts. Committee member Greg Smith MP suggested that different types of places to stop in an emergency might cause confusion for drivers.
He asked: ‘Would it not be better to have a very uniform set of emergency areas—the three-quarters of a mile spacing—where it is very clear what someone can and cannot do in them?’
In response, Mr Harris pointed out that hard shoulders have been in use for a long time and are well understood by drivers.
At the end of the hearing committee, chair Huw Merriman said that it would continue to monitor the issue of smart motorways 'and have further sessions'.
