Skip to main content

Real-time driving data reveals rush hour congestion on London’s road during tube strike

Following the warning by London Underground chiefs of tube strikes until lunchtime Wednesday 8 February, Waze, the real-time crowd-sourced sat nav app, issued data collected during the strike on 9 January to show, for the first time, just how badly London's commuters are affected by strike action. According to Waze, on 9th January, data at the peak-time 8.05am showed that 24 per cent of traffic was bumper to bumper– effectively standstill; at this time on a normal day it is usually around 12 per cent. Th
February 6, 2017 Read time: 2 mins
Following the warning by London Underground chiefs of tube strikes until lunchtime Wednesday 8 February, 6897 Waze, the real-time crowd-sourced sat nav app, issued data collected during the strike on 9 January to show, for the first time, just how badly London's commuters are affected by strike action.

According to Waze, on 9th January, data at the peak-time 8.05am showed that 24 per cent of traffic was bumper to bumper– effectively standstill; at this time on a normal day it is usually around 12 per cent. There was also 34 per cent heavy traffic, so nearly 60 per cent of total traffic at crawling or worse. Trips took on average 1hr 12 minutes longer than usual to get from Uxbridge to East Acton when approaching city from the West.

Waze says the worst routes included Temple to Trafalgar Square (1 mile) which took 40 minutes (34 minutes more than usual). By comparison, this route should take 13 minutes to walk.

On Brecknock Road, Kentish Town, speed was down to 1mph, taking 33 minutes longer than usual to travel from Brecknock Road to Junction Road in North London.

The M4 motorway near Chiswick was jammed, adding 25 minutes to the drive.

Many roads in central London were running slow, adding 20-35 minutes to travel under two miles.

During the evening rush hour period, follow up statistics at 5.30pm showed 25 per cent of London was at a standstill and 35 per cent of the capital was stuck in heavy traffic, travelling at under 5 mph.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Government green lights road and rail improvements
    July 19, 2013
    UK Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin has confirmed a £1.2 billion order for more state of-the art trains to transform rail travel on one of Britain’s busiest intercity routes. The 270 carriages will be manufactured in Britain by Hitachi Rail Europe as part of the government’s overall £5.8 billion Intercity Express Programme (IEP). The trains will operate on the East Coast Main Line from 2019 and will deliver significant benefits to passengers, including boosting capacity by 18 per cent, improving trai
  • Kapsch doesn't relax on the beach in Tenerife
    March 13, 2025
    Parking contract in Santa Cruz is designed to ease congestion
  • Cellint measures speed and travel time without roadside infrastructure
    April 10, 2014
    Collecting speed and travel time data without using roadside infrastructure could offer new possibilities to cash-strapped road authorities. Streaming video may be useful for traffic controllers to monitor incidents and automatic number plate recognition may be required for enforcement, but neither are necessary for many ITS functions. For instance travel times, tailbacks, percentage of vehicles turning, origin and destination analysis can all be done using Bluetooth and/or WI-Fi sensors and without video o
  • Sydney's Opal fares to increase at peak times
    June 23, 2020
    Off-peak reductions introduced in a bid to stagger commuting times