PRESS RELEASE

Transport Action Network (TAN)¹ is today calling for the Department for Transport (DfT) to come clean on ‘smart’ motorways. This comes as:

• TAN accuses the DfT of misleading the public when it says no more ‘smart’ motorways are being built. The Lower Thames Crossing and M60 Simister Island are being built to ‘smart’ motorway standards²
• Polling by the AA shows that the number of people who feel unsafe on ‘smart’ motorways is increasing, not decreasing³
• The DfT has been sitting on 14 evaluation studies of ‘smart’ motorways for years, but is expected to publish them at the end of this week⁴
• National Highways is attempting to blame a driver for a death caused by the failure of its ‘smart’ motorway technology at a criminal trial being heard this week⁵

The focus on ‘smart’ motorways is ramping up this week as the DfT is due to publish 14 long delayed evaluation studies about these contentious roads. As ministers have sat on the reports, they are expected to conclude that ‘smart’ motorways have brought fewer benefits than expected, and have wasted billions of pounds of taxpayer funds. They are also hated by drivers.

Chris Todd Director of TAN, said:

“It is simply untrue that no more motorways without hard shoulders are being built. The Lower Thames Crossing is a ‘smart’ motorway in all but name, having no hard shoulder to provide a safe place to stop in case of breakdowns. As the saying goes, if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. To keep denying it is a ‘smart’ motorway looks increasingly untenable.

“The department and ministers need to stop taking the public for fools and get a grip with the whole ‘smart’ motorway debacle. It’s time they were scrapped and the hard shoulders restored. Investing more cash into public transport would help relieve pressure on the roads, far better than building bigger roads.”

ENDS –

Notes to editors:

1. TAN was set up in 2019 by director, Chris Todd, to help communities press for better (more sustainable) transport. We support more investment in bus and rail services and active travel. To enable this and better roads maintenance (fewer potholes) we continue to oppose the previous government’s damaging roads programme. We also support better integration between transport and planning. ↩︎
2. Although the DfT maintains that no more ‘smart’ motorways are being built, this is untrue as the controversial Lower Thames Crossing is a ‘smart’ motorway in all but name, as it has 3-lanes, with no hard shoulder, is only open to the same vehicle classes as a motorway, and uses the same technology as ‘smart’ motorways. The recently approved M60 Simister Island scheme also has no hard shoulder included in the design. ↩︎
3. ‘Smart’ motorway anxiety doubles in a year, press release from The AA published on 3 February 2026 about polling of 12,705 AA members ↩︎
4. At least 14 Post Opening Project Evaluation (POPE) reports on ‘smart’ motorways are expected to be published this week, after the DfT has been sitting on them for years. The last POPE report for a Smart Motorway scheme was the five-years after report for the M1 Junction 10-13 Smart Motorway scheme published in 2021. It revealed it would make a £225m loss for the economy, rather than the predicted £1bn of economic benefits, which were used to justify the scheme (Table A-4). ↩︎
5. A criminal trial is being held this week at Reading Crown Court, into the actions of a driver involved in a fatal crash on the M4 between Junctions 11 and 12, where it has been converted into a ‘smart’ motorway. Evidence has been heard that the stopped vehicle detection technology had failed for five days before the fatal collision. If the technology had been working, the gantries would have closed off the lane the broken down car was in, speeds reduced, and the collision avoided. The defence for the driver claims that the “dangerously defective” ‘smart’ motorway was the “overwhelming cause”, and he is being scapegoated for National Highways’ failings. See this recent Times article ↩︎