Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate he has made of the number of accidents involving (a) personal injury and (b) death on (i) permanent all-lane running sections and (ii) dynamic all-lane running sections of smart motorways in each of the last three years.

England’s motorways are among the safest roads in the world and each smart motorway scheme’s safety objective is to be at least as safe as the traditional motorway it replaces.

All Highways England schemes are evaluated after opening. In addition, Highways England have carried out a more detailed review of the first two permanent all lane running schemes, on the M25, after one, two and three years of operation. From review of personal injury data (including fatal incidents) it has been demonstrated that the safety objective set for these all lane running smart motorways has been met.

The three-year evaluation reports for both M25 schemes are publicly available here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/m25-junction-5-to-7-third-year-evaluation-report

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/m25-junction-23-to-27-third-year-evaluation-report

This assessment approach of evaluating the first three years of operation was also taken for the first dynamic hard shoulder running scheme on the M42.

The three-year evaluation report for the M42 is publicly available here:

http://highwaysengland.co.uk/knowledge-compendium/knowledge/publications/m42-mm-monitoring-and-evaluation-three-year-safety-review/index.html