Common sense on Transport: Scottish Conservatives want hard shoulder running pilot

Scottish Conservatives want to pilot hard shoulder running on motorways.

Speaking from Eastwood where she was joined by candidate Jackson Carlaw, Annabel Goldie, Scottish Conservative Leader, said:

"Scottish Conservatives believe that opportunities to develop appropriate sections of the hard shoulder on Scotland's motorway should be a national transport priority. They would ease commuter journeys and contribute towards the ambitious carbon emission targets in the Climate Change (Scotland) Act.

"The decision by Transport Scotland in February to ditch the M77 pilot was short sighted. This scheme envisaged setting up a large park and ride facility at Monkton in South Ayrshire with priority bus use of the M77 hard shoulder between junctions 1 and 4. It would have eased congestion and assisted with carbon emissions.

"We will commit to revive this pilot and following constructive conversations with Stagecoach they have agreed to make a substantial financial contribution in order to have it established.

"Scotland is literally letting the grass grow on the development of our motorway hard shoulder resource, while the rest of the UK presses ahead following a highly successful pilot on the M42 in England.

"It is common sense to pilot this scheme on Scotland's motorways and we will be calling for this in the next parliament as a priority."

Building on the success of the M42 pilot in England the Coalition government is now rolling out hard shoulder running across the English motorway network. with TMS (Traffic Management Systems) traffic is controlled/managed on key motorway stretches (£2m per overhead gantry) - and the hard shoulder is used in advance of a junction exit and after a junction to allow exiting and entering motorway traffic to use the hard shoulder and ease congestion.

The TMS advises speeds and the pilot has been judged an unqualified success with countries the world over coming to review.

In Scotland, there is the potential to use the hard shoulder for bus and multi occupancy vehicles with associated park and ride. Specifically on the M77 a pilot was envisaged and at the last minute postponed by the SNP (saving just £5m) as part of this year's budget cuts. This would have seen a substantial park and ride established at Monkton in Ayrshire and Kilmarnock easing traffic into Glasgow.

Please see link below for more information on the M42 pilot

http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roads/network/policy/mtorsigntrafmanagement/advancemotorsign?page=4#a1019

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