'Pray to whatever God you believe in': The shocking words of a smart motorway ...

'Pray to whatever God you believe in': The shocking words of a smart motorway ...
'Pray to whatever God you believe in': The shocking words of a smart motorway ...

Amid the groaning sound of the alarm warning of a broken-down car, the operator asks: 'Is everything crashing? My cameras are gone.'

This isn't the time for an entire system malfunction.

An HGV has struck a bridge on the M1, there is a lorry on fire on the A14 and vital signals are needed on smart motorway sections of the M25 and M4.

'We've got no signals, you're all going to die… whichever god you believe in, start praying now,' says the jester of the room, a young man who has tied up his shoulder-length auburn hair.

This doesn't feel like a laughing matter.

The head of technology strolls through in a polo shirt and jeans, telling us he's trying to reset the system between bites of his apple.

I am less than two hours into my first shift as a traffic operator at National Highways' largest control centre and I am shocked as I watch the antiquated computers grind to a halt for more than 30 minutes.

I stick to 50mph on the M25 on my way home.

A control room operator in the National Highways East Regional Operational Control Room as the system used to set lane closures and speed limits went down for more than 30 minutes

A control room operator in the National Highways East Regional Operational Control Room as the system used to set lane closures and speed limits went down for more than 30 minutes

By the end of my six weeks working at the heart of a lethal roads system that politicians continue to insist is 'as safe or safer than conventional roads', nothing surprises me.

Critics including former roads minister Sir Mike Penning say National Highways has fallen short on 'all their promises' to keep motorists safe.

From what I've seen from inside the Regional Operations Centre (ROC), tucked behind a Welcome Break off Junction 23 of the M25, I couldn't agree more.

'Everything's breaking,' my manager says on one of my final shifts as she anxiously runs her long fingernails through her blonde hair.

The entire communications system has gone down, leaving eight operators trying to use four desk phones to speak to traffic and police patrols, as well as fielding calls from emergency SOS phones.

Then the CCTV system breaks, meaning staff can't monitor the roads or respond to alerts from the expensive radar system which detects stopped cars.

An experienced operator working at the East Regional Control Centre in South Mimms told an undercover reporter there are serious shortfalls in the technology used by the firm including dodgy

An experienced operator working at the East Regional Control Centre in South Mimms told an undercover reporter there are serious shortfalls in the technology used by the firm including dodgy

'It happens all the time,' she tells me and my fellow new starter when we finish our 'learning module' on how to behave in the office. 'Every single time I'm in the chair something like that happens,' she says, before rushing off to make more panicked calls to her superiors.

It has been more than four months since I applied for the £22,364-a-year role monitoring the major roads in the East of England.

After two virtual interviews, a medical exam and handing over my identity documents, I've been given a job in the organisation's hub responsible for smart motorway sections on the M25, M1 and M4.

From the control room, painted two shades of blue because they 'ran out of paint', operators wearing headsets each have four computer screens running different programs.

Each shift they are given one of four roles – setting signs and signals, call handling, deploying traffic officers on the radio channels, or organising the repair of any road damage.

At the front of the room is a wall of screens streaming CCTV cameras along the network. While some screens show a crisp picture, others are facing clouds or transmitting a green screen stating: 'No video input'.

Staff in the Control Centre tell of their safety concerns to the Daily Mail reporter

Staff in the Control Centre tell of their safety concerns to the Daily Mail reporter 

A colleague tries to find a breakdown on the M25 between Junction 18 to 19, but the CCTV camera he needs is broken and facing a wheat field. 'If you're going to crash on a field you'll probably be alright, we'll find you,' he jokes. 'But if you're going to crash on the motorway we probably won't…'

After an initial few days on the control room floor, I am given two-and-a-half weeks of classroom training, where I learn to take calls from SOS phones, set lane closures and speed limits and speak to on-road officers via radio ('Sierra Echo one two, this is Hotel Alpha, over').

On my last day of the intensive training programme, after passing my exams, we are taught about smart motorways. Crowded around a PowerPoint presentation on a laptop screen in a clammy office, we are told their cost-saving benefits – it costs £79million-per-mile to widen the motorway, compared to £5million to £15million to install the equivalent smart motorway.

Dressed in my uniform, a navy polo shirt and combat trousers boasting the now redundant Highways England logo, I return to the control room for 30 'coaching' shifts, where I have an experienced operator listening in to my calls.

Diligent staff, from the former police officer in his forties to the 19-year-old woman who left school with no qualifications, try their hardest to keep people safe, only to be let down by crumbling technology.

'There's so much trouble going on at the moment, with the public quite rightly questioning whether they're [smart motorways] safe or not', one operator, a former mechanic who has worked in the control centre for more than a decade, tells me.

'It's safe if there's technology and if the technology works, but if it's not bloody working...'

Pointing to a car that has been sitting on a smart motorway section of the M25 for more than 30 minutes, he adds: 'He's in a live lane. That should've flashed up on here to let us know that he's there. But he could be sat there for hours and we wouldn't even know about it, and if we don't know we haven't set signals.

'So now he's in a live lane with traffic bombing up behind him. That's when a truck comes along and hits him and we go, 'Oh well, we didn't know he was there.' I'm going to give her the talk,' another operator tells his colleague after he notices me flicking through every CCTV camera on the M25 while my 'coach' is in a meeting. 'Common sense has no place here,' he says.

Smart motorways are a 'known scam', he adds. 'Everyone thinks they're getting lots of technology, lots of signals, lots of cameras, but what they got was like the All Lane Running [where there is no hard shoulder] we've got here.

'It's not lit at night, you don't have the signals to tell people to move over because some of them are a mile and a quarter apart.' One woman tells me the system -– including the radios used to contact on-road traffic officers – once went down for an entire day.Another team manager takes me into the Silver Command office to show us how to use the camera network, but none of the control boxes, which were made in 2004, work.

'This is Silver, how do none of them work?' she says, frustrated as she punches different buttons. 'What's Silver?' I ask.

'If we have something serious happen, people have to come in here and sit in here, it should really be the desks where they should all be working correctly.'

Asked if that happens often, she says: 'Yeah, unfortunately. We get a lot of faulty c***.'

Undercover footage obtained in the National Highways control centre in South Mimms shows staff speaking of their safety concerns

Undercover footage obtained in the National Highways control centre in South Mimms shows staff speaking of their safety concerns 

The cameras get 'condensed on the inside and you can't see much', one operator tells me.

'Sometimes they just won't move or it

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