National Highways needs to urgently improve the operation of stopped vehicle detection (SVD) technology, which is missing one in three live lane stops, the company’s official monitor has said.
The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) has published its first annual assessment of safety performance on the strategic road network (SRN) including the operation and effectiveness of the end-to-end safety system on smart motorways.
The report shows that nationally SVD is detecting only two in three (67.5%) stopped vehicles, significantly below National Highways’ minimum requirement of 80%.
None of the company’s five regions with all lane running (ALR) smart motorways are meeting the benchmark, achieving between 59.6% and 79.6%.
The required average time to detect stopped vehicles in less than 20 seconds is also being badly missed.
Four out of five of National Highways’ regions with ALR smart motorways are not meeting this requirement, achieving between 43 and 65 seconds.
In addition, false detection rates are substantially above the required maximum across all National Highways regions with ALR smart motorways.
The company’s specification states that false alerts may not constitute more than 15% of all alerts but performance ranged from 63.8% to 83.5% across the regions.
The ORR said this creates extra workload for operators; risks reducing operators’ and drivers’ confidence in the system as false alerts automatically trigger ‘Report of Obstruction’ messages on variable message signs ahead of alert locations); and, ultimately, could lead to real alerts being missed.
It noted that National Highways had SVD in place on every ‘existing’ ALR smart motorway by the end of September 2022, ‘six months ahead of its original March 2023 milestone’.
However, as Highways has reported, the ORR was aware that National Highways moved the goalposts on the SVD installation target by ALR schemes that were in construction, but decided to hold it to account for the watered-down target.
The ORR said it was too early to see whether SVD was improving safety and reducing the risks associated with stopped vehicles on live lanes on ALR schemes.
Chief executive John Larkinson said: ‘Having the SVD radar detection equipment in place sooner than planned has helped to reduce the duration of these breakdowns more quickly but it’s not working as well as it should.
‘While it is still too early to have robust data, it’s clear National Highways needs to urgently improve its performance in this area.’
Iain Stewart MP, chair of the Transport Select Committee, said: 'The statistics revealed today by the Office for Rail and Road raise considerable concerns about the performance of National Highways in protecting drivers on smart motorways. This is putting lives at risk.
'The idea that in some regions of the country less than 60% of stopped vehicles were detected on smart motorways is chilling. In addition the fact that, in some areas, it took over 60 seconds for a stopped vehicle to be detected is also deeply concerning. Every second counts when cars, coaches and lorries are driving at up to 70 mph and there’s no hard shoulder.'
AA president Edmund King said it was ‘simply unacceptable’ that National Highways was missing its targets to detect stopped vehicles in live lanes and check alarms.
He said: ‘The ORR has confirmed that the radar system is not working effectively, which is a major concern for drivers.
‘For smart motorways to be truly smart and safe then the technology behind them must be fully effective. If there are doubts about the technology, then the motorways are not smart and we should revert to tried and tested methods.’
Mr King repeated his call for ministers to run a pilot scheme that re-instates the inside lane as a hard shoulder with a Red X and runs a national lane discipline campaign to get better use out of the capacity of the motorway and make the network safer.
He added: ‘At the same time, there needs to be a rapid retrofit of emergency laybys, so no one is too far away from a place of safety.’
The RACs head of roads policy, Nicholas Lyes said the organisation was keen to see National Highways get on top of teething problems it has had following the installation of SVD.
He said: 'Breaking down in a live lane is terrifying enough but drivers must have confidence that the infrastructure is detecting them quickly so authorities can immediately close the lane.'
National Highways said that by the end of June 2023 it will aim to have met the performance specification for SVD where it is in place, ‘in a way which our operators can manage’.
Chief executive Nick Harris said: ‘It’s right that road users expect high performance standards, that’s why we’re committing £105m over the next two years to build further resilience into the operational technology to make journeys even safer and more reliable.’
The ORR said National Highways appears to be on course to achieve its key safety target to halve the number of people killed or seriously injured on the SRN by 2025, compared to a 2005 to 2009 baseline but noted that traffic levels in 2021 were still affected by the pandemic.
It also noted National Highways had finally achieved a national average response time of nine minutes and 49 seconds against the target of a 10-minute national average response time on smart motorways where the existing spacing between ‘safe places to stop in an emergency’ is more than one mile.
