Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many and what proportion of (a) all-lane running and (b) dynamic hard shoulder smart motorways have an emergency refuge area at least every (i) three-quarters of and (ii) one mile.

Currently just over a third of ALR smart motorways in operation have places of relative safety (PRS), including Emergency Areas, spaced at an average of less than one mile. The average spacing between PRS on operational ALR schemes is currently approximately 0.97 miles. National Highways does not hold the data available for dynamic hard shoulder (DHS) smart motorways in the format requested.

In the Government’s response to the Transport Select Committee in 2022, £390m was committed to constructing an additional 150 Emergency Areas to ALR smart motorways in operation over the duration of the second Road Investment Strategy to reduce the spacing between places to stop in an emergency in line with the new standard.