SMART motorways with hard shoulders used only at peak times are too complicated and no more will be built, a roads boss says.
Highways England chief executive Jim O’Sullivan told MPs too many drivers did not understand the set-up.
The arrangement is used on sections of the M1, M4, M5, M6, M42 and M62.
Mr O’Sullivan said people were confused about when they could use the hard shoulder and when it was emergency-only.
He told the Commons Transport Committee: “People whose normal daily commute takes place at 8am or 9am, if they’ve been to the dentist and come out at 11am, they drive down the hard shoulder.
“When we close it at other times of the day, people still drive down it.
“Even when it is open, the usage of that running lane is much lower because people aren’t sure.”
He added: “I don’t think we will be building any more dynamic hard shoulder smart motorways.”
Other types of smart motorways include all lane running where the hard shoulder has been removed and controlled motorways with variable speed limits and a hard shoulder.
But concerns are growing that losing the breakdown lane has caused deaths.
Derek Jacobs, 83, was killed in March when his car was hit after stopping on a smart section of the M1 in Derbyshire.
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This came months after a woman was killed on the same stretch after leaving a broken-down car.
But Mr O’Sullivan insisted that smart motorways were “as safe or safer than conventional motorways”.
Steve Gooding of RAC said: “The simpler motorways are to understand the safer they will be.”
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