Roads regulator calls on National Highways to improve safety

National Highways is set to miss road safety targets unless it changes course, according to a new report from the Office of Rail and Road (ORR).

Its annual report on safety on England’s strategic road network (SRN) says that National Highways has achieved a 38% reduction in the number of people killed or seriously injured on the SRN since the 2005 to 2009 average baseline.

However, the report says it is not on course to meet its 2025 target of a 50% reduction and is calling for a “robust plan” to be produced by the end of March 2024, setting out how it aims to meet it.

Feras Alshaker, ORR’s director of performance and planning, said: “National Highways has delivered safety improvements on the strategic road network over the long term, but we are now requiring a detailed plan from the company on what additional interventions are needed to achieve its target to reduce the number of people killed or seriously injured on England’s strategic roads, as time is running out."

The report acknowledges that stopped vehicle detection performance on all-lane running sections of smart motorways has improved.

The latest data now show that performance targets for the three metrics ORR reported on last year are being met, including the average time to detect a stopped vehicle on an all-lane running smart motorway.

However, ORR says that the company must now focus on expanding its analysis to understand how it can further optimise stopped vehicle detection performance.

Alshaker explained: “In terms of stopped vehicle detection on all lane running smart motorways, performance has improved significantly since last year, and now National Highways needs to clearly set out how it plans to make better use of the data it collects to inform further performance improvements.”

National Highways’ action plan to improve the performance of key operational technology assets like CCTV, signs and signals on all-lane running smart motorways, which was also called for by ORR in its 2022 safety report, is now being implemented, it says.

However, it argues that there is still more work to do, and the company must continue to work towards its aim of 97% availability for key operational technology assets by the end of the road period (March 2025), which currently range between 91% and 97% availability.

Alshaker said: “ORR will continue to hold National Highways to account on what it needs to deliver, to help ensure the strategic road network continues to further improve for its users.” 

Following the publication of its own progress report on smart motorway safety, National Highways chief executive, Nick Harris, said: “Safety is our highest priority and we are committed to further improving all lane running motorways.

"We have completed key upgrades to improve the performance of technology to detect stopped vehicles, and today we have set out the next sections of motorway to benefit from the programme to install more than 150 extra emergency areas to give drivers added reassurance.

"We are also continuing to invest £105 million to improve the resilience of our operational technology systems.”