The immediate agenda - Transport Policy and Planning in Great Britain - page 385

Box 23.1 The Highways Agency's management system replacing the Targeted
Programme of Improvements
• Scheme options - delivery of a scheme proposal through investigation of
different options, public consultation and a ministerially approved preferred route
announcement
• Scheme development - preparation of the detailed scheme, public inquiry
process, approval of scheme
• Contractor and inancial authorisations for an agreed target cost
• Construction - ministerial approval to construct the scheme.
Source: HA Business Plan 2007/08
(ATM) carried out on the M42 around Birmingham (DfT 2007a). The scheme involved
mandatory speed limits varied according to the volume of traffic coupled with use of
the hard shoulder as an additional lane during peak periods. Its effects were favourable
across a wide range of indicators including reduced and more predictable trip times in
peak periods, reduced fuel consumption and emissions and reduced casualty rates. At
the launch of this report in November 2007 Secretary of State Ruth Kelly announced
that the scheme would be extended across the whole of the Birmingham motorway
box and that ATM measures would be investigated on a much wider scale across the
strategic road network (LTT 481).
In a remarkably swift follow-up she made a further announcement reporting the
results of this investigation in March 2008:
Our high level analysis indicates that there are a number of sections of the
motorway network that would benefit from dynamic use of the hard shoulder
at congested times in the short to medium term (initially to 2014) to deliver
congestion benefits where they are most urgently needed.
The priority locations we have identified include most sections of the
M1, M6 and M62 where there are planned widening schemes but also some
locations where there are no planned widening schemes such as the M27 around
Southampton, the M4/M5 at Bristol and the radial routes around the M25. Other
traffic management interventions without the hard shoulder running facility may
also be desirable on other stretches both in traffic terms and in order to create a
coherent 'managed network' proposition.
(DfT 2008a)
The immediate effects of this abrupt policy change are reflected in the Highways
Agency's Business Plan for 2008/09. This contains only two motorway widening
schemes amongst six national road schemes in the 'development' phase. These are
both sections of the M25 (M40-A1(M) and M11-Thurrock) where contracts are at
such an advanced stage that cancelling them would generate few if any overall cost
savings. However for other sections of the M25 and for the locations listed in the
Feasibility Study where schemes are still at the 'options' stage, hard-shoulder running
is to be studied as an alternative to widening.
The financial attractions of this alternative are clear; ATM measures at around
£6m per mile (2006 prices) are less than a third the cost of widening (LTT 489). So too