Smart motorway

In bygone days when I used to drive between Cornwall and London/Kent I would, for two or three years, traverse a stretch of the M3 being revamped as a "smart" motorway. Last week I had the first opportunity to see how smart the newly completed road is. Excitement!

The "smart" qualifier evokes images derived from experience of existing smart devices. I can access YouTube videos and other apps on my smart TV, as well as browsing the web (although to be honest it's too clunky to do that; a laptop and a mouse much easier). I can do all that on my smartphone - but that term is pretty much extinct; now all phones are "smart". The first so-called smartphone as we recognise it today was possibly the iPhone in 2007, although hand-held communication devices had been manufactured for a decade or so before that. Nowadays my phone does even more than my smart TV.

If I had a smart watch it might do even more but a 76yo's eyesight and dexterity probably can't make best use of it. And it seems designed around a notion of exercise=good; I'm not a great believer in that.

Not sure my Alexa device is truly smart - I asked her whether she was smart and she answered "I try my best"; not a huge confidence booster.

The Internet of Things enables home automation to a (some would say) ludicrous degree, where the house resembles more a gigantic toy room more than a cosy, relaxing living space.

What is common to all smart devices, I suppose, is connectivity - to each other, to the Internet, to satellites - and processing power, i.e. the ability to work with data quasi-instantly. In my imagination, I had hopes of driving along the  M3, watching football on giant screens that move alongside me, getting weather and news updates that I can interact with using my voice-activated in-car device and beamed to the screen in my rear passenger seat, automatic instantaneous charging of my electric car and cruise control connectivity. And containing future-proofed electronic infrastructure for driverless vehicles. Imagine a motorway where you arrive in your car, log on to the "smart drive" functionality and sit back while the road takes you hundreds of miles in perfect safety. A dedicated driverless motorway, a bit like putting your car on Le Shuttle on Eurotunnel.

So how does the M3 measure up to those criteria? 

As far as I can tell, a smart motorway differs from its dumb friends in two respects:

1. Traffic management, e.g. variable speed limits.

2. Hard shoulder running, allowing an extra lane when there are no vehicles on what would have been the otherwise used hard shoulder, i.e. 80 or 90% of the time.

Instead of my futuristic vision, I actually get... an extra lane and more speed limits. For £129 million (2014 estimates).

Now don't get me wrong; maybe the cost is less than the potential savings. That's not my point. My beef is with PR-speak "smart" designation.

Dear M3, even my Alexa is smarter than you. When I asked her "are you smarter than the M3?" she at least had the self awareness to answer "hm, I don't know that one".

M3, you are a watch which just tells the time. Tick tock (not to be confused with TikTok, Mr President).