We’ve all been there; sat in an unmoving car, patience slowly wearing thin, the local radio host’s aggressive enthusiasm for cheesy chart toppers growing more and more intolerable. Traffic sucks. There’s no denying that. But it’s possible to avoid, if you know where to go.
Inrix, a US based software company, have been tracking traffic levels for the past three years in major cities across the world, and they’ve ended up with some good insights into where you need to steer clear of if you don’t want to end up in an hours-long delay.
They use a few different metrics to determine the levels of congestion in any given place including the amount of hours lost on average, cost of fuel wasted, average speed in busy streets, and how much they’ve improved since the last ranking was done.
Unsurprisingly, London is the most congested city in the country, with a whopping 99 hours lost on average per driver over the course of a year. What could Londoners do with those extra 99 hours? They could’ve learnt a new skill, become proficient in another language, or done a lot of scrolling on TikTok. What wasted potential.
Birmingham was the second most backed up place, with an average of 60 hours lost. That’s certainly more tolerable than the capital’s near 100, but still far from ideal. In third place was Bristol who, despite having more wasted hours on average than the Brummies at 62 hours lost, have improved since 2019 and beaten the midlands hub in other measures.
After Bristol, Leeds and Wigan closed out the top five. Here are the top ten most congested cities in the UK, as determined by Inrix’s research:
- London
- Birmingham
- Bristol
- Leeds
- Wigan
- Bath
- Chelsmford
- Manchester
- Herford Harlow
- Burton on Trent
You can see the full list, including international cities and details on how much money you lose being in traffic (fair warning: it's very depressing), here.
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