Smart Motorways - Who manages them?
Discussion
Not managing, but someone is interfering with it (as in f**king it up) on the M25 from J12 to J11 on a daily basis!
Even at 14.30 on a weekday there has been a reduced speed limit every time I have used it 60 or 70 times over the last year - with 2 notable exceptions (the interferer must have been on holiday)! And guess what, those were the 2 occasions when traffic actually flowed (instead of being backed up and crawling until the limit reverted to N/S/L).
But at least after 2+ years of a 50 average limit my local stretch of M3 will eventually become a (mis)managed (Oops, "Smart") motorway - so probably a 40 limit!!
Even at 14.30 on a weekday there has been a reduced speed limit every time I have used it 60 or 70 times over the last year - with 2 notable exceptions (the interferer must have been on holiday)! And guess what, those were the 2 occasions when traffic actually flowed (instead of being backed up and crawling until the limit reverted to N/S/L).
But at least after 2+ years of a 50 average limit my local stretch of M3 will eventually become a (mis)managed (Oops, "Smart") motorway - so probably a 40 limit!!
As I understand it, the system is pretty much automatic using sensors to monitor traffic levels and applying speed limits and hard shoulder running as deemed necessary and closing lanes if vehicles are detected as being stopped in live lanes. The reduced speed limits often seem random and unnecessary. They can be triggered on quiet motorways by a slow heavy load going along fooling the system into thinking traffic is at a crawl when it isn't.
The emergency services have officially gone public in a session of the Transport Select Committee with their concerns about the lack of hard shoulder on smart motorways.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/cars/features/smart-mot...
The emergency services have officially gone public in a session of the Transport Select Committee with their concerns about the lack of hard shoulder on smart motorways.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/cars/features/smart-mot...
Someone works for them and normally comes on these threads and gives lots of facts counteracting the statements above. ie that it is not possible.
Does anyone have, or know of on youtube, an example of these types of bad limit changes on dashcam? I do remember myself being on one that was hopping about all over the place leading oneself to nearly get rear-ended, but of course I can't remember the actual numbers. I just remember it was ridiculous.
Does anyone have, or know of on youtube, an example of these types of bad limit changes on dashcam? I do remember myself being on one that was hopping about all over the place leading oneself to nearly get rear-ended, but of course I can't remember the actual numbers. I just remember it was ridiculous.
IanH755 said:
I was travelling down the M1 to the M25 last night at about 10pm and there was a single "smart" gantry which said 40mph with virtually zero traffic and the went back to NSL at the next gantry. Whoever is "in charge" is a ****ing moron.
These are the ones I hate, are you supposed to slow down to 40mph for one errant sign or use common sense and risk getting caught by a camera. The old flashing 50 or FOG signs in the central reservation were often left on when not needed and subsequently everyone just ignored them all the time. The smart motorway network is in my opinion just a stepping stone to install infrastructure to enable road charges. Clearly removing the hard shoulder is not a safety move, the M3 is being made more dangerous for no apparent reason and the M4 is soon to follow.
They're a patch because labour decided that building roads was bad ("it just causes more traffic" for those who can remember that far back). Now the network is over capacity, and because politicians generally having a hard-on for "solving problems with technology" they think that this is a good answer.
IMO they are hoping against hope that self-driving cars will come along and solve the capacity problem before it all goes completely to tits. This "smart" and hard shoulder running crap is just a (rather expensive) stop gap. More lanes are what's needed.
IMO they are hoping against hope that self-driving cars will come along and solve the capacity problem before it all goes completely to tits. This "smart" and hard shoulder running crap is just a (rather expensive) stop gap. More lanes are what's needed.
I recall reading that Labour preferred building more lanes to widen motorways but the Conservatives weighed up the cost of that against turning the hard shoulder into an extra lane and went for the relatively quick and cheap fix, saying widening motorways was a waste of money.
Of course, in media articles biased towards the Conservatives saving money with smart motorways the public readership voted that they were a good idea. People tend to let the media do their thinking for them and many people don't understand what smart motorways are or have the foresight to see the risks.
Of course, in media articles biased towards the Conservatives saving money with smart motorways the public readership voted that they were a good idea. People tend to let the media do their thinking for them and many people don't understand what smart motorways are or have the foresight to see the risks.
Edited by Blakewater on Tuesday 31st May 22:05
eliot said:
M1 smart section around 13 to 10 always seems to be 60mph even when it's empty.
You lucky person - M25 from J12 to J11 is never more than 50 mph, but after J11 it goes back to 70 and the "congestion" miraculously disappears! Not too hard to work out why!??Nobody actually "manages" them, there is just some tw*t that f*cks them up for a living....
king annoying 
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