Britain’s worst road for traffic revealed – does your street make the list

BRITAIN’S most congested roads have been revealed as the average driver lost 80 hours to traffic jams in 2022.

London’s roads were named worst in the world for traffic as new data unveiled the scale of delays in the capital.

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Data firm INRIX have released their annual Global Traffic Scorecard, with routes in cities like Birmingham, Leeds and Edinburgh all making the list of the UK’s busiest.

The A219 Southbound between Fulham and Morden in South London, topped the rankings, with an average of 47 hours lost, closely followed by the A202 Eastbound in South East London with 45.

Both these roads are popular commuter routes and saw their busiest times at 5pm each day.

Outside of the capital, the worst road was the A45 Eastbound in Birmingham, which lost drivers an average of 37 hours, with a peak time of 4pm.

Much of the traffic was caused by road works running through the latter part of the year.

The data also showed the 10 cities with the highest traffic delay times.

London, perhaps unsurprisingly, topped the list by far, with the average delay time per driver clocking in at a whopping 156 hours.

According to INRIX, this amounted to a per driver cost of £1,377 due the price of lost petrol and other running costs.

Bristol came in a distant second, with 91 hours lost per driver and a cost of £805, while Manchester rounded out the top three with 84 lost hours setting motorists back an average of £742.

The cities of Cambridge, Exeter and Cheltenham were fortunate enough to drop off the list.

They were replaced by Edinburgh, Leeds and Leicester in seventh, ninth and tenth respectively.

The nationwide average of 80 lost hours is an increase of seven hours on 2021, but a 35-hour decrease from 2019.

For the country as a whole, the total cost of sitting in congestion is estimated at around £9.5 billion.

In the worldwide stakes, London’s 157 average lost hours gave it the dubious honour of top spot, ahead of Chicago at 155 hours and Paris at 138.

Bob Pishue, a transport analyst and author of the report, said: “It is great to see civic and commercial life returning to normal, but unfortunately, we’re seeing congestion inching closer to, if not exceeding, pre-pandemic levels.

“We must manage congestion while improving mobility and accessibility in cities to avoid it hurting economic recovery and impacting the quality of life of commuters and residents.”

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