Written question asked by Lord Spellar (Labour) on Monday, 8 September 2008, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Monday, 15 September 2008. It was answered by Baroness Winterton of Doncaster (Labour) on Monday, 15 September 2008 on behalf of the Department for Transport.

Roads

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Transport what assessment her Department has made of the likely effects of using lane space for (a) hard shoulder running, (b) car share lanes and (c) tolled lanes.

Answer: In March, a report was made to the Secretary of State on the feasibility, costs and benefits of extending advanced signalling and traffic management techniques more widely across the motorway network. This looked at hard shoulder running and also considered the potential that a more managed motorway environment would offer for other traffic management approaches, for example car share lanes and tolled lanes. Car share and tolled lanes have worked well in other countries and we are exploring how well they could work on our motorways.The Feasibility Study can be found on the Department for Transport's website at:"http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/roads/network/policy/mtorsign trafmanagement/."Following that the Secretary of State commissioned a more detailed study to appraise the various options for managing our motorways more effectively in locations identified across the network. This work is due to be complete by the end of the year.

Secondary information