LGA - Average driver spends nearly £1,000 and wastes almost five days stuck in traffic a year

22 Aug 2017 09:07 AM

A new report published by the LGA – ‘A country in a jam: tackling congestion in our towns and cities’ - reveals the extent of the country’s congestion crisis.

Travel speeds across the country’s local roads continue to decrease, with the average speed on ‘A’ roads now just 25.2 mph, 1 per cent slower than it was this time last year. Congestion also significantly contributes to excess harmful vehicle emissions - which leads to 40,000 premature deaths annually.

The LGA is warning that congestion is no longer just threatening our environment and the quality of our air, but also becoming a drain on our economy and productivity too. It is forecasting that congestion will cost the economy £300 billion a year by 2030 –a tenfold increase of the current costs of £30.8 billion a year.

With traffic forecasted to rise by up to 55 per cent by 2040, council leaders are calling on government to outline a comprehensive congestion strategy to tackle the issue.

The LGA said councils need the same sort of long term funding certainty for local roads maintenance that is enjoyed by Highways England and Network Rail. This is desperately needed to help councils tackle the £12 billion roads repair backlog and congestion they face on local roads.

Bus travel also needs to be actively encouraged. The Government needs to fully fund the concessionary fares scheme and give councils control over the Bus Service Operators’ Grant. This fuel duty rebate, currently paid directly to bus operators, would enable councils to protect vital bus routes, and give them the funding they need to provide an effective and efficient bus service.

Councils, outside London, also need powers enforce moving traffic offences so they can target notoriously congested junctions or stretches of road where safety concerns have been raised.

Cllr Judith Blake, LGA Transport spokesperson, said:

“Congestion can have a significant impact on our towns, cities and communities, and act as a drag on local growth. Worse still, it can lead to toxic air and reduced quality of life.

“When the average motorist is spending a working week every year sat in traffic on major roads, and losing almost a £1,000 in the process, it’s clear that councils need to be able to do more to tackle this growing problem.

“Councils are working hard to combat traffic and congestion. But they need long-term consistent funding to invest in local roads and need greater powers to solve the problem and introduce attractive alternatives to car journeys, such as through public transport, walking and cycling.

“This will help those that need to use the roads as well as those that have to live with the consequences of congestion.”

CASE STUDIES

• Oxfordshire County Council is working on a range of initiatives to try to pre-empt congestion in their local area by developing smart technology to anticipate flare-ups of traffic, and diverting drivers away from them. One example is the UK Connected Citizens Partnership (CCP) was launched by the council in partnership with Waze, a crowd-sourced, real-time, Sat Nav app. The hope is that by drivers being able to submit hotspots, congestion can be tackled as soon as possible.
• Brighton & Hove City Council has made great strides in prioritising buses in their local community. One bus can take as many as 75 cars off the road, and the city has taken advantage of this by delivering a number of schemes to increase bus usage. An extensive bus network, with 20km of bus lanes and 3000 buses a day, operates along the key corridors in and out of the city. Brighton & Hove local authority area has the highest bus use per head of population outside London. Brighton & Hove also uses real time information for passengers to increase the amount of people travelling on buses, by allowing passengers to know exactly how far away the next bus is, which has also enabled the council to monitor the performance of their public transport.

NOTES TO EDITORS

1. Read the full report from the LGA, ‘A country in a jam: tackling congestion in our towns and cities’ here.

2. Travel speed across local ‘A’ roads are published by the Department for Transport, and available here.