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Motorists sit in more traffic in this UK city than any other – is your journey affected?
Commuters spend more time sitting in heavy traffic in London than anywhere in the UK with drivers spending almost 150 hours parked up last year. The analysis from INRIX found commuters had spent a total of 149 hours in traffic jams in 2019, the highest in the UK.
Belfast had the second highest traffic rate with commuters spending an average of 112 hours waiting around.
Bristol fared slightly better with motorists spending an average of 103 hours in traffic jams.
Edinburgh and Manchetser were also high up the list with road users spending over 90 hours stuck on the roads.
Other high offending cities include Cardiff, Lincoln, Aylesbury and Birmingham whose drivers spent over 80 hours in congestion.
READ MORE: Traffic wardens: Are traffic wardens key workers?
Colombian town of Bogota was found to be the highest area in the world for congestion problems with mtorots spending a total of 191 hours in traffic.
Trevor Reed, analyst at Inrix said London suffered from very little road space but heavy demand which caused issues.
He said: You have very severe congestion and a massive, relatively high earning population. UK cities are quite a bit older and a lot denser than American cities.
“London is over 2,000 years old. When you develop around walking, and horse and buggy, and everything but cars, the urban environment does not handle [cars] all that well.”
Analysis from Inrix found road traffic had cost the nation’s economy a total of £6.9billion last year.
The figure equates to an average of £894 per driver in a major blow to many local businesses.
However, the economic cost was lower than the previous year when the Inrix study found traffic had cost the UK an average of £7.9billion pounds.
This equated to a staggering £1,317 per driver as experts warned high levels of traffic could soon have consequences for companies.
The Department for Transport (DfT) has previously promised to improve journeys for road users with further investment into the network.
A DfT statement said: “This Government is determined to improve journeys for all motorists, which is why we’re investing nearly £29 billion to reduce congestion on our roads up to 2025.
“Looking to the future, our £2.5 billion Transforming Cities Fund will help develop innovative public transport projects.
“While the tripling of our investment per head in cycling and walking since 2010 is encouraging people to try other ways of getting around – helping create less congested towns and cities.”
Published at Fri, 10 Apr 2020 13:51:00 +0000
