To match an exact phrase, use quotation marks around the search term. eg. "Parliamentary Estate". Use "OR" or "AND" as link words to form more complex queries.


Keep yourself up-to-date with the latest developments by exploring our subscription options to receive notifications direct to your inbox

Written Question
Dual Carriageways: Speed Limits
Tuesday 5th December 2023

Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many sections of dual carriageway are subject to reduced speed limits due to the condition of central reservation safety barriers as of 28 November 2023.

Answered by Guy Opperman - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Transport)

There are currently no speed restrictions in place on any stretch of dual carriageway on the Strategic Road Network due to the condition of the central reservation safety barriers.


Written Question
Road Traffic Control
Tuesday 4th April 2023

Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many times the National Highways CHARM system has suffered an outage lasting in excess of ten minutes in the last 12 months.

Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)

In the last 12 months there have been: 18 planned outages for routine maintenance and upgrades, and 21 unplanned outages, lasting more than 10 minutes to the CHARM system. Of these, 26 impacted single regions only.

During these outages National Highways has well-rehearsed mitigations in place, including, but not limited to dedicated Traffic Officer patrols and increased monitoring of CCTV.


Written Question
Road Traffic Control
Monday 27th March 2023

Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 9 March 2023 to Question 158934 and the Answer of 20 March 2023 to Question 163764 on Road Traffic Control, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of redundancy systems for National Highways’ CHARM system in the context of the outage on 22 February 2023.

Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)

On rare occasions, the nature of a failure may prevent the operation of CHARM for longer periods of time and when this happens National Highways has well-rehearsed procedures in place to help ensure the safety of road users, such as increased patrols and CCTV monitoring. Safety remains our priority and National Highways investigates every outage to ensure that steps are taken to prevent future occurrences.


Written Question
Motorways: Accidents
Monday 27th March 2023

Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how may traffic officer vehicles have been involved in an accident in a live lane on smart motorways in the last 12 months.

Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)

National Highways does not hold this data in the format requested.


Written Question
M23: Accidents
Monday 20th March 2023

Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how may traffic officer vehicles have been involved in accidents in a live lane on smart motorway sections of the M23 in the last six months.

Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)

Given the very small number of accidents involving traffic officer vehicles across the strategic road network, it is not possible to provide information at the individual motorway level, as individual persons could be identifiable from the response.


Written Question
Road Traffic Control
Monday 20th March 2023

Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether system redundancy allows National Highway’s CHARM system to continue operation seamlessly in the event of a systems failure.

Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)

The CHARM system has been designed with system redundancy to move promptly to a backup system.


Written Question
Road Traffic Control
Thursday 9th March 2023

Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether system redundancy to ensure continued operation in the event of a system failure was included in the original design specification for the National Highways’ CHARM system.

Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)

Yes, the system has been designed to provide full system redundancy and disaster recovery arrangements in the event of a system failure.


Written Question
National Highways: ICT
Monday 30th January 2023

Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether it is the policy of National Highways to provide advanced notice to motorists of any planned outages of its Dynac system.

Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)

As with any technology, there is an ongoing need for maintenance and upgrade work. There was planned maintenance overnight on Saturday on 28 January 2023, timed for when traffic levels are at their lightest.

National Highways have well-rehearsed procedures in place for planned outages, including increased patrolling by National Highway’s traffic officers, pre-positioned vehicle recovery and active monitoring of CCTV.


Written Question
National Highways: ICT
Monday 30th January 2023

Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether National Highways is planning any outages of its Dynac system.

Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)

As with any technology, there is an ongoing need for maintenance and upgrade work. There was planned maintenance overnight on Saturday on 28 January 2023, timed for when traffic levels are at their lightest.

National Highways have well-rehearsed procedures in place for planned outages, including increased patrolling by National Highway’s traffic officers, pre-positioned vehicle recovery and active monitoring of CCTV.


Written Question
Motorways
Monday 9th January 2023

Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 19 December to Question 109583, on Motorways whether his Department collects data on response times to each incident in which a vehicle is stranded in a live lane on All Lane Running Motorways.

Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)

National Highways provides the Department with a monthly summary of traffic officer attendance time data. This covers, for all incident types, the time from when we are first made aware of an incident, to when a traffic officer arrives at the incident on all lane running smart motorways where emergency areas are more than a mile apart.

The average response time in November was 9 minutes and 22 seconds.