Traffic congestion cost the UK economy £6.9billion last year with the average driver spending 115 hours stuck in jams
- Gridlocked roads cost the UK economy £6.9billion last year, figures show
- In 2019 average road user spent 115 hours stuck in traffic at cost of £894
- Worst cities were London, Belfast, Bristol, Edinburgh, Birmingham and Hull
Cycling is faster than driving in eight of the country’s most congested cities, where constant jams see traffic crawling at average speeds of 10-16mph.
The findings come from an annual traffic survey by transport data firm Inrix, which revealed that gridlocked roads cost the economy £6.9billion last year.
In 2019, average road users spent 115 hours stuck in traffic, at a cost of £894.
In eight of the ten most congested cities – London, Belfast, Bristol, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Southampton, Nottingham and Hull – cycling was quicker than driving.
But the study found big improvements are still needed to public transport, which was only quicker than driving in London and Edinburgh.
In eight of the ten most congested cities – London (pictured), Belfast, Bristol, Edinburgh, Birmingham , Southampton, Nottingham and Hull – cycling was quicker than driving
Trevor Reed, of Inrix, said: ‘Across the UK’s most congested cities, average driving speeds of 10-16mph mean cycling is actually a quicker option for many people. Congestion costs drivers, businesses and the economy billions of pounds each year.’
He added that rail investment, including HS2, had the potential to reduce car use, creating a ‘seamless network of rail connections’.
Mr Reed also predicted the situation could lead to a spread of hire services for bikes and e-bikes, and a reversal of the ban on electric scooters, saying this ‘could provide the answer to reducing travel times for all road users’.
But he added that road safety would have to be improved for non-car users to tempt people to cycle.
London was the most congested city last year with drivers spending 149 hours in jams and averaging speeds of just 10mph. The congestion cost the capital’s economy an estimated £4.9billion.
The cost of congestion was estimated using a calculation that combined the average value of workers’ time and average productivity of businesses per hour.
Cardiff saw the biggest growth in congestion, with a 5 per cent increase to 87 hours per driver in 2019 compared with 2018, while the biggest decrease was in Nottingham, where congestion dropped by 17 per cent to 78 hours per driver.
London was the eighth most-congested in the world, some way behind Bogota, the capital of Colombia, where drivers spent 191 hours – almost eight days – in traffic last year, and inner city speeds averaged 9mph.
London was Europe’s third most congested city, behind Rome, where drivers spent an average of 166 hours in jams, and Paris, where the average was 165 hours.
The most congested UK road was the A404 and A501 between Edgware Road and Old Street, in central London, where drivers were delayed for an average of 44 hours last year.