Motorways

If there's trouble crossing the Channel, you'll see the lorries queuing on the M20. What is Operation Stack? Why does it cause so much trouble? And why, more than twenty years after it started, are we still using it?

During the 1960s the UK developed some of the most sophisticated - and strange - electronic variable message signs anywhere in the world. How? And, just as importantly... why?

Motorways used to be really simple. Now they have electronic signals, variable speed limits, emergency lay-bys, part-time hard shoulders... Just what is so smart about Smart Motorways?

Those funny black and yellow symbols are everywhere - and they might just get you back on track one day.

If you're on the motorway (in England at least) you might have noticed some funny blue signs down the side of the road. What are they for?

The very first motorway was eight miles of relief for the Lancashire town of Preston. It goes without saying that there's an interesting story to be told about it.

A civil engineer, working principally in the North West of England, responsible for many of the area's motorways.

Those last few miles of the M1 east of Leeds were completed in 1999. It looks for the most part like a fairly average piece of road, but one of the project's engineers describes some of the challenges that were faced.

What happens when there's a big accident on a trunk route? Who picks up the pieces, and why does it take so long?