A smart motorway (formerly managed motorway and active traffic management), also known in Scotland as an intelligent transport system, is a section of motorway in the United Kingdom (primarily in England) that employs active traffic management (ATM) techniques to increase capacity through the use of MIDAS technology including variable speed limits and occasionally hard shoulder running and ramp metering at busy times. They were developed at the turn of the 21st century as a cost-effective alternative to traditional carriageway widening, with intended benefits ranging from more reliable journey times to lower vehicle emissions. However, despite the risk of a collision occurring between two moving vehicles being found to be decreased, there has been an acknowledged rise in the incidence of collisions involving vehicles where at least one was stationary in the first few years following the widespread removal of the hard shoulder on the country's busiest sections of motorway. Smart motorways garnered intense criticism from politicians, police representatives and motoring organisations, particularly from 2020 onwards, after a surge in near miss incidents and dozens of fatalities were revealed. The term controlled motorway is sometimes used for schemes that use variable speed limits without hard-shoulder running (for example, the M25 motorway between junction 27 and junction 30). History The traffic management technique, including hard shoulder running, was first used in its full specification in the UK on the M42 motorway in the West Midlands in 2006. A higher speed limit of was trialled on the southbound carriageway between junctions 4 and 3A from 2008 (a increase on the previous maximum permissible speed). In 2007 plans were announced by the then secretary of state for transport, Ruth Kelly, to extend the scheme to two sections of the M6 motorway near Birmingham (4-5 and 8a-10) by 2011 at a cost of £150 million. The emergency refuges were to be extended to every on the roll out. A study into the use of ATM on the M1, M4, M20 and M25 motorways was also announced, however the Department for Transport had decided to proceed with a scheme to widen sections of the M25. A £2 billion contract was announced to extend the scheme to sections of the M1, M4, M5, M6, M60 and M62 in February 2010 with a further announcement by the new government in October 2010. The contract was awarded to four delivery partners Balfour Beatty, Carillion and joint ventures BAM Nuttall/Morgan