Hard Shoulder trial starts

Yesterday saw the start of a trial on a stretch of the M42 here in the West Midlands. The trial is to assess the impact on traffic congestion of opening the hard shoulder for general use when the road is congested. The trial is taking place within the Active Traffic Management portion of the M42 from J7 (M6 junction) to J3A (M40 Junction). It appears that when the Active Traffic Management speed limit is set to 50 mph, the hard shoulder becomes effectively a fourth lane for general use. Based on my 2 journeys on this stretch of road yesterday it seems to work well, although it is a little unnerving driving along the hard shoulder at just under 50mph with a whole load of other cars. What did surprise me yesterday is that people actually took notice of the signs and used the hard shoulder. I was expecting to be scowled at for using it myself but there were lots of people using the hard shoulder and it all seemed to work well. If this trial is successful it could be the catalyst for this scheme being rolled out across other traffic congestion blackspots across the UK motorway network, although there is a lot of work involved with the new style signage which would need to take place first.