3.9 The Agency's slowness in completing trials of hard shoulder running, and its procurement approach which focused on widening, meant that it was not in a position to seriously consider hard shoulder running as an alternative to widening, The Agency should have given greater consideration to hard shoulder running from the outset of its project. Even in late 2008 and early 2009, when the Agency had satisfied itself on the general benefits and savings of hard shoulder running, we believe it should have given greater consideration to the approach before its final decision to let the widening contract.
3.10 We do not consider that the Agency's cost estimate in 2008, that hard shoulder running was not expected to deliver financial savings (Figure 10 opposite), was a sufficiently thorough assessment of the savings that an acceptable conventionally procured hard shoulder running solution could provide.
3.11 We estimate there were potential construction and financing savings to consider of £400-£700 million (12-21 per cent) over the private finance widening. This takes account of the Agency's assessment that implementing hard shoulder running has produced savings of around 40-60 per cent of the capital costs of widening although it also considered that further savings may be achievable.18 We also consider that there was scope for the Agency to achieve operation and maintenance efficiencies more in line with the costs expected by the private finance bidders. The potential savings over the M25 widening contract would then increase to between £800 million and £1.1 billion (24-32 per cent) if the low end of the Agency's cost estimates of conventional procurement is reduced by £400 million in line with Connect Plus's final bid. Details of our calculation can be found in Appendix 3. The Agency considers these efficiencies in operation and maintenance costs could not have been achieved through short-term conventional contracts.
3.12 An evaluation of hard shoulder running should consider any change in benefits from using this technique rather than widening. The benefits assessment needs careful consideration. The results of the Agency's trials on the M42 showed some reduction in benefits was to be expected. There was, however, considerable variation in the benefits that hard shoulder running can deliver at different speeds. The Agency did not have a detailed assessment of the benefits that could be achieved from using hard shoulder running on the sections of the M25 that were being widened.
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18 Department for Transport - Britain's Transport Infrastructure Motorways and Major Trunk Roads, January 2009.