The Highways Agency has highlighted the considerable amount of work that goes on behind the scenes and away from the public eye that helps to ensure travellers across the length and breadth of the nation's transport network are able to drive in safety.

David Pilsworth, project manager for the Highways Agency, commented: "As autumn's darker evenings set in, it may be easy to think that road workers may be 'clocking off' earlier, when in fact, they're still working to make our road network less congested and safer for the future.

"This work is often unseen, or takes place during unsociable hours, but is just as important as it keeps our motorways safe and running effectively."

Many drivers believe that roadwork projects up and down the country could be carried out in a more efficient manner in the UK, with some drivers witnessing areas where sections of road are cordoned off but little to no activity can be seen.

However, it is often the work going on behind the scenes – night time installations, the testing of technology, the construction of embankments, etc – that makes all the difference in terms of road safety, but cannot be witnessed out on the roads.

Indeed, up to 50 per cent of the work carried out by agency engineers will probably never be seen by the motoring public, as daytime 'on the ground' construction accounts for only around half of the work carried out by agency engineers in the UK.

For example, as many as 40 million road users travel via a stretch of the M1 in West Yorkshire that is currently undergoing renovation by the Highways Agency and Mr Pilsworth wanted to highlight the considerable amount of work that most travellers will never even be aware of that goes into making this stretch of the carriageway safe for all.

He revealed that to date, the implementation of the new smart motorways scheme for the M1 between junctions 39 and 42 has seen more than 1.5 miles of sub-surface ducting laid, in excess of 1,100 soil nails inserted to anchor the road's surrounding land mass, 200,000 sq m of carriageway have been resurfaced, while more than 6,000 tonnes of earth have been removed and an additional 1,500 tonnes of new materials brought into the site.

All of these processes help to ensure that improvements to this stretch of the carriageway will deliver a safer driving environment for all users in the future, with Mr Pilsworth concluding it is therefore important for all motorists to be patient when they come upon roadworks, as even when it appears nobody is working at a site, it is more than likely progress is still being made.

Work on the M1 smart motorways scheme is continuing to progress well, with the agency predicting the new traffic management systems being installed along this stretch of the carriageway will be fully operational by early 2015.