Skip to main content

Inrix: Congestion cost UK motorists over £37bn in 2017

The UK is the third most congested country in Europe and the tenth most congested country in the world where costs amounted to more than £37.7bn ($52.2bn) for all drivers in 2017, an average of £1,168 ($2,233) per person. These findings come from Inrix’s annual Global Traffic Scorecard which analysed and ranked the impact of traffic congestion in 1,360 cities across 38 countries. London remained the UK’s most congested major city for the tenth consecutive year as drivers spent an average of 74 hours in
February 12, 2018 Read time: 2 mins

The UK is the third most congested country in Europe and the tenth most congested country in the world where costs amounted to more than £37.7bn ($52.2bn) for all drivers in 2017, an average of £1,168 ($2,233) per person. These findings come from 163 Inrix’s annual Global Traffic Scorecard which analysed and ranked the impact of traffic congestion in 1,360 cities across 38 countries.

London remained the UK’s most congested major city for the tenth consecutive year as drivers spent an average of 74 hours in gridlock during peak hours. It cost them £2,430 ($3,354) a year each and the capital £9.5bn ($13.1bn) from direct and indirect costs.

Manchester, Birmingham, Luton and Edinburgh made up the remainder of the top five most congested major cities, with motorists in Manchester stuck in congestion for 39 hours during peak hours, and 10% of their total drive time in gridlock. It cost each of them £1,403 ($1,937) and the city £345m ($476m), while drivers in Birmingham spent over 9% of their total drive time in congestion, costing the city £632m ($876m).

City Centre Insights revealed that peak hours in Central London were the worst time and place for drivers in the capital, where they spent an average of 23% of their time in congestion at an average speed of under 5 mph.

Results from Britain’s most congested roads found that London roads were the busiest during rush-hour, with the A406 from Chiswick Roundabout to Hanger Lane ranked as the UK’s most congested road, in which motorists spent a total of 56 hours in congestion.

In addition, drivers travelling into and out of the capital during peak hours spent 16% of their time in gridlock with an average speed of 12.8 mph.

A full copy of the report and additional findings are available on the %$Linker: 2 External <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary /> 0 0 0 link-external website Inrix website link false http://inrix.com/press-releases/scorecard-2017-uk/ false false%>.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Uber’s autonomous taxi kills pedestrian, North American trials suspended
    March 20, 2018
    An autonomous car operated by Uber has killed a pedestrian in what is believed to be the first death of its kind, in a report by The Independent. The vehicle, according to Tempe Police, was driving in autonomous mode as part of the company’s North America tests that included an operator behind the wheel that was not in control at the time of the incident. Uber Technologies has suspended all of its driverless car tests in Phoenix and Arizona as well as Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Toronto.
  • MaaS Market London: Top names debate local authorities’ digital dilemma
    January 16, 2019
    Key players in the transport sector will debate the challenges faced by local authorities worldwide from new digitised platforms such as Mobility as a Service (MaaS) in a dedicated session at ITS International’s 2019 MaaS Market Conference in London this March. Taxi-hailing apps have already demonstrated the disruptive nature of new digitised transport services. As a result, some local authorities have struggled to retain control over issues such as traffic management and the vetting of taxi drivers and
  • International Making Cities Livable Conference - call for papers
    November 17, 2016
    The 54th International Making Cities Livable Conference takes place in New Mexico, USA on 2-6 October 2017, with the theme of public places for community, democracy, health and equity. Paper proposals are invited from elected officials, scholars and practitioners concerned with the issues such as active mobility, walkable ten minute commuting/reshaping suburbia, integrating public health and planning, health impact assessment and more. For more details and to submit a proposal, please see the confere
  • 12th ITS European Congress: Free webinar on 11 May 2017
    May 9, 2017
    Ertico is running a free webinar on 11 May, providing details of the highlights of the 12th ITS European Congress, which takes place in Strasbourg on 19-22 June. With over 100 sessions, tours, demos and events taking place over just four days, participants will be spoilt for choice on where to spend time. During the webinar, Eric Sampson, senior advisor to the Congress Programme, will run through the programme and point out interesting sessions and events that visitors can look forward to at the Congress. T