Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what data his Department holds on response times for providing support to vehicles stranded in live lanes on smart motorways; and what policies his Department has on the (a) collection and (b) use of such data.
Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
National Highways annual smart motorways safety publications include data about vehicles stopped in live lanes, which shows that a very small proportion of total journeys on any road result in live lane breakdowns. National Highways also monitor and manage the performance of traffic officer attendance times, where emergency areas are more than a mile apart, and stopped vehicle detection times where the system is in place.
The Department meets regularly with National Highways to review operational data and will continue to consider this alongside the wider safety and economic data during the current pause on the roll-out of new smart motorways.
As part of the stocktake action plan in 2020, National Highways committed to faster attendance by more traffic officer patrols where emergency areas are more than a mile apart, reducing the national average time it takes traffic officers to attend incidents from 17 to 10 minutes. In September 2022, National Highways successfully met its revised national target and averaged a response time of 9 minutes 49 seconds.
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 30 November to Question 93553 on Motorways: Safety, of the 10% of vehicles stopped in live lanes on all-lane running motorways not detected within 60 seconds, in how many instances detection took more than (a) five and (b) ten minutes in 2022.
Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
National Highways has established processes for monitoring the performance of stopped vehicle detection where it is in place on all lane running sections of smart motorway, collecting samples of operational data covering emergency areas and live lanes. National Highways currently has 17 days’ worth of operational sample data covering the period 2021 and 2022.
From this data, an average of around 98.3% of vehicles stopped in live lanes or emergency areas were detected within 5 minutes, and around 99.7% within 10 minutes. There were single figures of cars that took over 10 minutes to detect.
Please note that as the sample of the data evolves, there may be further changes to the figures presented. As the data is based on a sample dataset, any extrapolation or conclusions should be made with caution.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many and what proportion of incidents in which a vehicle became stranded in a live lane of an all-lane running motorway did detection take more than (a) five and (b) ten minutes in 2022.
Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
National Highways identifies stopped vehicles through various sources including being notified by the police, public, stopped vehicle detection (SVD) technology where in place, recovery industry and its traffic officers.
To monitor the performance of SVD National Highways sample operational data.
Based on the latest operational data, National Highways detects around two thirds of identified stopped vehicles within 20 seconds and this rises to almost 90% within 60 seconds.
This data also shows almost all stopped vehicles identified by SVD technology were detected within five minutes, excluding very few instances which were deemed to be false alerts.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how long it takes on average to (a) detect and (b) respond to a vehicle stranded in a live lane on all lane running motorways in England.
Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
National Highways detects around two thirds of stopped vehicles within 20 seconds and almost 90% within 60 seconds.
National Highways has also made considerable progress in attending incidents on all lane running motorways, especially where emergency areas are more than a mile apart. In September 2022 the average attendance time for these sections was 9 minutes 49 seconds. National Highways will continue to work hard to keep average attendance times to 10 minutes on these sections.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many incidents occurred in which (a) Stopped Vehicle Detection systems and (b) overhead warning gantries were offline as a result of technical failures across the smart motorway network in the last 12 months.
Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
Smart motorways have a whole system of inter-related safety features, not present on conventional motorways, which means there is no over-reliance on one single feature. When outages do occur, National Highways has well-rehearsed procedures to deal with issues when they arise and additional measures can be taken to limit any impact on drivers, including extra traffic officer patrols and virtual CCTV patrols.
For the month of September 2022, the national availability of Stopped Vehicle Detection technology was recorded at over 98%, and for warning signs at over 90%. National Highways has already taken action to continue to improve warning signs availability to meet the 95% availability target they have.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how long in total hours (a) Stopped Vehicle Detection systems and (b) overhead warning gantries have been offline as a result of technical failures across the smart motorway network in the last 12 months.
Answered by Richard Holden - Minister without Portfolio (Cabinet Office)
Smart motorways have a whole system of inter-related safety features, not present on conventional motorways, which means there is no over-reliance on one single feature. When outages do occur, National Highways has well-rehearsed procedures to deal with issues when they arise and additional measures can be taken to limit any impact on drivers, including extra traffic officer patrols and virtual CCTV patrols.
For the month of September 2022, the national availability of Stopped Vehicle Detection technology was recorded at over 98%, and for warning signs at over 90%. National Highways has already taken action to continue to improve warning signs availability to meet the 95% availability target they have.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, which motorway projects were under construction where the hard shoulder was being converted to a running lane as of 1 September 2022; what the completion date is for those projects; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Katherine Fletcher
As of the 1 September 2022, there were 4 schemes all lane running upgrade schemes under construction. These were the: M1 Junction 13-16 (noting parts of this scheme had already finished construction by 1 September 2022), M4 Junctions 3-12 (noting parts of this scheme had already finished construction by 1 September 2022), M6 Junctions 21a-26 and M56 Junctions 6-8.
It is expected these sections will have completed construction and have stopped vehicle detection in place no later than:
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many passenger trains serviced Rotherham Central Station in March 2022 compared to March (a) 2017, (b) 2018 and (c) 2019.
Answered by Wendy Morton
The table below shows the total number of services from Rotherham Central Station in March for each year requested:
Time Period | Number of Trains |
March 2017 | 2,949 |
March 2018 | 2,752 |
March 2019 | 3.108 |
March 2020 | 2,662 |
March 2021 | 2,140 |
March 2022 | 1,822 |
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many people used Rotherham Central Station in March 2022 compared to the number of people in March (a) 2017, (b) 2018 and (c) 2019.
Answered by Wendy Morton
The table below presents estimates of the number of tickets issued for travel to or from Rotherham Central Station in March for each year requested:
Time Period | Number of Tickets Issued |
March 2017 | 28,570 |
March 2018 | 24,062 |
March 2019 | 24,693 |
March 2022 | 16,737 |
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of pausing all work on forthcoming smart motorway projects pending the Government’s response to the Transport Committee's report entitled Rollout and safety of smart motorways.
Answered by Trudy Harrison
The Transport Select Committee’s (TSC) report Rollout and safety of smart motorways was published on 2 November 2021, and the Department has since been considering its recommendations in detail. The Government will be providing a formal response to the Committee meeting its deadline of 10 January 2022. The Secretary of State’s focus since assuming office has been to ensure that smart motorways are as safe as they can be, and I can assure the Honourable Member that we are taking the Transport Committee’s recommendations seriously.