Accredited official statistics

Travel time measures for the Strategic Road Network and local ‘A’ roads: October 2021 to September 2022

Congestion on the Strategic Road Network (motorways and ‘A’ roads managed by Highways England), and on locally managed ‘A’ roads, year ending September 2022.

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Details

On the Strategic Road Network (SRN) for September 2022, the average delay is estimated to be 9.0 seconds per vehicle per mile (spvpm), compared to free flow, a 11.1% increase on the previous year.

The average speed is estimated to be 58.4 mph, down 1.5% from September 2021.

On local ‘A’ roads for June 2022, the average delay is estimated to be 45.1 spvpm compared to free flow.

The average speed is estimated to be 23.8 mph.

Please note that figures for the SRN and local ‘A’ roads are not directly comparable.

The Department for Transport went through an open procurement exercise and have changed GPS data providers. This led to a step change in the statistics and inability to compare the local ‘A’ roads data historically. These changes are discussed in the methodology notes.

The outbreak of coronavirus (COVID-19) has had a marked impact on everyday life, including on congestion on the road network. As these data are affected by the coronavirus pandemic in the UK, caution should be taken when interpreting these statistics and comparing them with previous time periods. Additional analysis on the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on road journeys in 2020 is also available. This Storymap contains charts and interactive maps for road journeys in England in 2020.

Contact us

Road congestion and travel times

Email congestion.stats@dft.gov.uk

Media enquiries 0300 7777 878

Updates to this page

Published 14 December 2022

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