Mr. Gareth Llewellyn:

I thank the Deputy for that. I appreciate it. He would have got a very short answer had he asked such questions. When it comes to dynamic traffic management on the M50, as I said, there are a number of issues. One is about road safety. We must make sure road users can get access to assistance if their vehicles break down to protect those vehicles and to move them off the road quickly so traffic will keep moving. When it comes to adverse weather, one needs everybody to stay safe and, therefore, being able to manage the flow at a sensible speed when there is particularly bad weather is important. The technology enables one to do that but only if there is one thing in place, and I will come back to that in a moment.

If peak times are between 7 a.m. and 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. and 7 p.m., a big chunk of the traffic includes people who are being delayed unnecessarily because of the acceleration and braking ahead of them. Keeping that traffic flow moving in a constant way is important. Dynamic traffic management will allow that. However, it only works if people know they must comply through their behaviour. If it is advisory, we know that most people will ignore that and do what they need to because, to them, their route home is the most important. Being able to have some enforcement around that is important.

I want to make it clear, and I know the committee understands this point, that there is no financial benefit to TII from that because whatever enforcement penalties arrive do not come back to TII. This is all about improving the efficient use of that network and road safety, which is what TII is there to do. Whether that model can be applied elsewhere is something to consider at some point. We need the technology in place to prove it works, and if it shows the benefits we think it will, the same approach could be rolled out elsewhere.