Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 15 November 2021 to Question 70323 on Motorways, whether his Department has made an assessment of the effectiveness of his Department's £5 million national public information campaign entitled Go left.

The first wave of National Highways’ ‘Go Left’ campaign, which commenced in Spring 2021, has been fully evaluated via the Government Communication Service (GCS) evaluation framework which includes pre and post campaign tracking research. Ahead of ‘go live’, the campaign creative was tested though online customer focus groups with a number of different groups of drivers – young, older, female, commuters and disabled drivers. National Highways also tested the creative with key stakeholders such as organisations in the recovery industry.

National Highways measured driver awareness and confidence levels around what to do if they break down on a motorway, with and without a hard shoulder, before, during and after the campaign through a campaign survey working with ICM Unlimited.

Evaluation showed that 48% spontaneously recalled the campaign, which was mostly driven by the TV advert. 89% thought that the adverts were clear and easy to understand, with 89% reporting the ads told them useful information and 58% saying they were told something new. After being shown the advert, the key message taken away was that they should keep moving left (62%).

The second wave of the campaign (in Autumn 2021) will also be evaluated via the GCS evaluation framework, this will include pre and post campaign surveys to measure driver awareness and effectiveness of the campaign. National Highways has commissioned audience research ahead of the second wave, which has showed a high level of retention for the core campaign messages.