Skip to main content

Significant drop in Europe’s traffic congestion mirrors economic downturn

Inrix, a leading international provider of traffic information and intelligent driver services, has released its latest traffic scorecard which shows that, among the 13 European nations analysed, the countries impacted the most by the European debt crisis mirror those with the largest drops in traffic congestion. Portugal (-49%), Ireland (-25%), Spain (-15%) and Italy (-12%) were among those with the largest declines last year. Despite being considered the strongest European economies, troubles across the E
June 25, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
RSS163 Inrix, a leading international provider of traffic information and intelligent driver services, has released its latest traffic scorecard which shows that, among the 13 European nations analysed, the countries impacted the most by the European debt crisis mirror those with the largest drops in traffic congestion. Portugal (-49%), Ireland (-25%), Spain (-15%) and Italy (-12%) were among those with the largest declines last year. Despite being considered the strongest European economies, troubles across the Eurozone fuelled declines in Germany (-8%), Netherlands (-7%) and Belgium (-3%). In comparing 2011 to 2010, France showed change of less than 1%.

Analysis of traffic congestion in the first five months of 2012 shows even further declines. With France showing a three per cent decline, the drop in traffic congestion extended from eight to nine of the 13 European countries analysed in the report. By comparison, the strength of Germany's economy fuelled by modest employment growth (+1.3 per cent) resulted in a six per cent increase in traffic congestion in the first five months of this year.

According to the Inrix index, Belgium heads Europe's top 10 worst countries for traffic congestion followed by the Netherlands, Italy, UK, Spain, France, Germany, Austria, Portugal, Switzerland. Luxembourg, Hungary and Ireland complete the list respectively among the 13 European countries analysed.

The Inrix Traffic Scorecard is based on analysis of billions of raw data points from the company’s  own historical traffic database of approximately 100 million vehicles traveling the roads everyday including taxis, airport shuttles, service delivery vans, long haul trucks as well as consumer vehicles and mobile devices. Each data report from these GPS-equipped vehicles and devices includes the speed, location and heading of a particular vehicle at a reported date and time. In creating the scorecard, Inrix analyses information for more than one million kilometres of motorways and secondary roads in Europe and more than one million miles of roads in North America during every hour of the day to generate the congestion analyses, covering the largest metropolitan areas in 15 countries.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • European car manufacturers face world’s toughest CO2 targets
    July 12, 2012
    Following the adoption yesterday of the European Commission's proposals to reduce CO2 emissions from cars and vans, the European Automobile Manufacturers' Association (ACEA) says it will now work with its members to conduct a full analysis of how the proposed targets should be reached as well as their feasibility, and what this means in practice for the industry as a whole.
  • Satellite-based truck tolling provides Slovak solution
    August 12, 2015
    Slovakia opted for a satellite-based tolling system and following last year’s enlargement it now has the European Union’s largest truck user charging system.
  • Installed base of fleet management systems in Europe to reach 10.6 million by 2020
    August 26, 2016
    The number of active fleet management systems deployed in commercial vehicle fleets in Europe was 5.3 million in Q4-2015, according to a new research report from the M2M/IoT analyst firm Berg Insight. Growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14.9 percent, this number is expected to reach 10.6 million by 2020. All the top-10 vendors have today more than 100,000 active units in Europe. TomTom’s subscriber base has grown both organically and by acquisitions during the past years and the company ha
  • Xerox makes transportation simple
    May 16, 2012
    To many, Xerox is nothing more than the ‘copy company’. For those who know better, they are now the largest provider of transportation services to governments around the world. Xerox is appearing in all sorts of unexpected places after their acquisition of Affiliated Computer Services (ACS) in 2010 and dropping the ACS name earlier this year. To help establish the company as a key player in the intelligent transportation world, Xerox chairman and CEO Ursula Burns will be the featured speaker at the 2012 ITS