Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have to establish a review on how to improve the safety of smart motorways.

The most recent data on fatalities published is for 2017 and 2018. For smart motorways (this includes All Lane Running, Dynamic Hard Shoulder and Controlled Motorways), there were 8 fatalities in 2017 and 19 in 2018. This is compared with 83 fatalities on Conventional Motorways in 2017 and 67 in 2018. While this metric for fatalities gives us an understanding about safety on different road types, it does not consider the volume of traffic on these roads and how intensely they are used. The fatal casualty rate, which are fatalities per hundred million vehicle miles travelled, accounts for the volume of traffic that roads carry.

The most recent data in the table below shows that fatal casualty rates on smart motorways are lower than on conventional motorways:

Fatal casualty rates per hundred million vehicle miles, 2015-2018.

Following concerns about smart motorway safety the Secretary of State asked the department to review the evidence and, if needed, bring forward recommendations. The conclusions were published in March 2020. Overall what the evidence in the Smart Motorway Safety Evidence Stocktake and Action Plan shows is that in most ways, smart motorways are as safe as, or safer than, the conventional ones. To ensure that smart motorways are as safe as they can be, alongside the safety evidence stocktake, we published an 18-point Action Plan.

Highways England is implementing the Action Plan in full and has already completed work, including the provision of 10 additional emergency areas on the M25 and making all emergency areas more visible by introducing a bright orange surface and better, more frequent signs.