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EXCLUSIVE
The majority of emergency refuge areas (ERAs) on a section of the M1 smart motorway in South Yorkshire are shorter than the 100m length advised by Highways England.
On smart motorways – where the hard shoulder has been replaced by a live traffic lane – emergency refuge areas are designed to offer a place to stop for vehicles experiencing a problem.
However figures obtained by NCE via a freedom of information request show that 16 of the 20 ERAs installed as part of the M1 junctions 28-31 scheme measure less than 100m. Lengths range from 94.5m to 99.9m (full breakdown below).
The M1 smart motorway has been under increasing scrutiny over the past year, with Highways England last month referred to the Crown Prosecution Service for manslaughter in connection with the death of a woman on the road.
Nargis Begum had been unable to reach an ERA when she broke down between junctions 30 and 31. While she awaiting help another vehicle crashed into her car, which then hit her.
South Yorkshire police and crime commissioner Alan Billings said he is “not surprised” by the ERA figures and questioned whether cost saving had played a part.
“I have consistently argued that additional lanes were added without hard shoulders in order to save money and this raises the suspicion that the departure from recommended lengths was also about cutting costs,” he said.
“This also raises questions for me about the oversight of the original works. We have noticed the difficulties break-down vehicles experience trying to extricate vehicles from the refuges, especially where they are HGVs.”
Highways England emphasised that the scheme was designed to 2013 design parameters (IAN 161/13) - set out by its predecessor the Highways Agency - under which the 100m length was advice rather than a requirement.
In 2015, based on lessons learnt from the first all lane running (ALR) schemes, this advice was changed to a requirement (IAN 161/15), meaning that any reduction from 100m from then on would require a departure from standard application to be submitted.
Highways England added that the variation in lengths is not due to cost, citing geographical factors as one explanation.
“Emergency areas are wider than hard shoulders, set further away from traffic and at regular intervals – and so a vehicle in one is less likely to be struck by traffic,” a Highways England spokesperson said.
“Some emergency areas built to an older design standard are marginally shorter than 100m, for example due to the geography of the area, but are plenty large enough to be safely used.”
However AA head of roads policy Jack Cousens said that “although only just short of 100m, the extra 5m could make all the difference between someone stopping in the ERA or overhanging to a live lane”.
He added: “It would be interesting to know how the geography justifies the reduction in size.”
Highways England is collating information on the width of ERAs as part of the government’s smart motorway stocktake, with findings to be published later this year.
Cousens said that “this could be an opportune moment to see if those extra five metres [in length] are worth investment”.
In the case of this section of motorway, the widths all measure above the "minimum permissible", which is 4m. The "desirable" width is 4.6m.
IAN 161/13 clauses 5.33 to 5.35: emergency refuge area lengths
5.33 The design length for an entry taper should be 25m. If an ERA is unoccupied a driver will be able to use the stopping area, or potentially even part of the exit taper, to bring the vehicle to a standstill.
5.34 The design length for the stopping area should be 30m. This will provide room for multiple vehicles, in particular to allow an HGV to be recovered by an HGV recovery vehicle.
5.35 The design length for the exit taper should be 45m.
These dimensions equate to a total length of 100m from the start of the entry taper to the end of the exit taper.
Incidents on smart motorways have led to calls for more frequent ERAs and increased safety measures to detect broken-down or stopped vehicles.
In February, transport secretary Grant Shapps revealed that the roll out of Stopped Vehicle Detection (SVD) technology will be accelerated across the smart motorway network. He admitted that it was “entirely wrong” to convert motorways into ALR without the SVD technology in place.
Highways England said: “We have worked closely with the recovery industry to develop guidance on safe recovery from smart motorways, which involved carrying out a successful joint exercise to test a number of different recovery scenarios.”
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I refer you to the wonderful Aussie comedy series “The Games” shown in the run-up to the Sydney Olympics in 2000. One of the main storylines was that the 100m running track was about a metre short, and the organisers sat back and hoped that no-one would notice. Hilarity ensues.
Of course, these “Smart” motorways are the most fraudulent misnomer ever and far from funny.
Not only is HE and the Dept of Transport continuing to trot out the line that the absence of a continuous hard shoulder is just as safe as having one (???) and that there are all these emergency refuges along the road (not a motorway) anyway, they can’t even measure 100m properly. What a sick joke. The sooner that these appalling apologies for good highways engineering are scrapped and continuous hard shoulders are re-instated, the better.
Well done to the NCE for revealing this deceit.
So, the 30m full width section of the ERA “will provide room for multiple vehicles” Has anybody thought through how this works once one vehicle is in the ERA (in a random location) How do other vehicles get into the ERA and out of the ERA safely?
The statement “Emergency areas are wider than hard shoulders, set further away from traffic and at regular intervals – and so a vehicle in one is less likely to be struck by traffic,” is fatuous, this is about the availability of refuge space along the length of the motorway. The only conclusion from the observation that wider refuge areas are safer is that all hard shoulders should be wider. If the refuge length is restricted the result is vehicles are unable to get to a refuge or unable to access it safely. Add this to the multiple failure modes inherent in the system, from detection and warning systems to driver error. No electronic system is 100% accurate. How does this system fail safe??
Thank goodness those who encouraged this travesty of road design aren’t designing aeroplanes. I’m still curious about the “road safety audit” that should have been carried out. Anyone got a copy?