Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, when two motorways serving similar areas are disrupted by accidents, what steps are taken to ensure that (a) concurrent closures do not take place and (b) alternative routes are advertised beforehand; and if he will make a statement.

When incidents take place on the Strategic Road Network (SRN), Highways England do everything possible to restore normal operations on the network and get traffic flowing as quickly and safely as possible. CLEAR (Collision, Lead, Evaluate, Act and Reopen), is a joint initiative between Highways England, the DfT and other partners, including the Home Office and emergency services, to minimise the disruption caused by incidents and motorway closures.

When two motorways serving similar areas are disrupted by incidents, Highways England use a variety of tools to assess the impact and delays which each incident has had on the network and on Local Authority roads, in order to provide advanced warning to road users and suggest alternative routes.