"Motorways and Major Trunk Roads" was published on 15th January 2009 by the Department for Transport.

It said "The approach we have developed for improving capacity and reliability on the motorway network provides an important element of the longer term strategy, alongside options we are developing for improving rail services and additional measures we will be investigating on the national road network to address our five transport goals and deliver value for money. "

 THE INTRODUCTION TO THE PAPER FOLLOWS:

Roads – Delivering Choice and Reliability’ our Command Paper published in July 2008, set out the challenge that we face in sustaining the key role of the national road network in supporting economic growth and productivity, in the face of current congestion at peak times and traffic growth. It announced that up to £6 billion had been made available to fund improvements to national strategic roads in England, and set out the national schemes which were being considered for this funding.

This funding is in addition to the £3 billion allocated to strategic regional roads before 2015/16 through the Regional Funding Allocation process. The command paper listed schemes that were planned to start construction by 2010/11. Regions are currently reviewing their priorities for the period up to 2018/19.

The Command Paper explained that while some road building will be needed to provide extra capacity, we must also consider more innovative ways to add capacity to existing roads. That is why we have been exploring locations where the hard shoulder could be used to provide extra carriageway space on the motorway network.

The high level analysis in the Advanced Motorway Signalling and Traffic Management Feasibility Study (ATM feasibility study) published in March 2008 identified a number of sections of the motorway network that would benefit from controlled use of the hard shoulder (hard shoulder running - HSR) at congested times in the short and medium term. These included some sections which had previously been considered for future widening, but which could be converted to hard shoulder running at significantly lower cost than a conventional widening.

Since March, the Department and the Highways Agency have been undertaking more detailed development of the design, costs and benefits of HSR on these sections of motorway, and where appropriate have made a comparison with widening. This work has also developed further the concept of HSR for more widespread use across the network.

This document describes the conclusions of this work, explains the way in which we will apply the ‘managed motorways’ concept progressively across key parts of the network in England, and the schemes that will be taken forward. It also sets out our programme of other capacity enhancements on the national network.

In November 2008 we published Delivering a Sustainable Transport System, which set out the challenges for longer term transport planning beyond 2014. The approach we have developed for improving capacity and reliability on the motorway network provides an important element of the longer term strategy, alongside options we are developing for improving rail services and additional measures we will be investigating on the national road network to address our five transport goals and deliver value for money.

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