Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to tackle traffic congestion.

The Government has an ambitious strategy for tackling congestion in our cities and towns and improving performance on our roads. This strategy includes providing significant investment in both our strategic and local road networks, as well as encouraging more sustainable transport including buses, light rail and walking and cycling. We are providing £15.2 billion between 2015 and 2021 to invest in our strategic road network. This is the biggest upgrade to our motorways and ‘A’ roads for a generation, and it is adding capacity and tackling congestion.

The Road Investment Strategy is providing a transformational level of investment in the strategic road network (SRN), with over 400 extra lane miles of Smart Motorways, including a ‘smart spine’ linking London, Birmingham and the North West and schemes to improve critical freight routes, such as the £1.5 billion A14 scheme in Cambridgeshire and the M6 in Cheshire.

The drive to improve safety and reduce congestion underpins the vast majority of our schemes. Several schemes, however, are specifically focused on alleviating these problems – the two of which often go hand in hand. On the M25, upgrades to Junction 10 will create a free-flowing interchange with the A3, improving an area which has a high casualty rate. In the North, planning work will start for upgrades to two of the region’s most important interchanges: the M62/M1 Lofthouse interchange and the M60/M62/M66 Simister Island junction.

On local roads we have the £12 billion Local Growth Fund to 2021 which has enabled local authorities through the Local Enterprise Partnerships to identify and secure funding for projects to enable among other things, local road improvements and sustainable local transport projects. This is on top of over £6 billion through to 2021 to councils in England to help maintain their local roads and repair potholes.

This investment is set against the backdrop of a regulatory framework that is intended to provide better conditions for all road users through coordination and proactive management of the road network. The Traffic Management Act 2004 specifically places a network management duty on each local traffic authority in England to manage its road network to secure the expeditious movement of traffic on its own network and to facilitate the same on the network of other authorities. This can be achieved through traditional traffic management methods including effective enforcement of parking and management of street works but increasingly also through the deployment of technology. To support this the Department for Transport is currently inviting local authorities to bid for a share of £2m to fund demonstrator projects to test these new technologies.