UK's worst places for traffic jams - revealed

4 Jun 2019

If you had to guess where in the UK might be worst for traffic jams, then we'd imagine there's a good chance you'd say London. After all, it's renowned for being congested and even has charges in place in an attempt to beat it.

However, you'd be wrong. Actually, it turns out that this most unwelcome of accolades goes to the beautiful Scottish city of Edinburgh.

According to analysis by sat-nav manufacturer TomTom, motorists there have an average of 40 per cent extra time on their journeys because of traffic jams than would be the case on an empty road.

London did rank highly on the list, though, coming in at second place with an average extra travel time of 37 per cent.

Other offenders to feature included Bournemouth, Hull and Belfast. In sharp contrast, Middlesbrough was found to be the least congested place in the UK - and more work is going on there soon to further improve traffic calming.

The research found that over the course of a year, the average British motorist spends 132 hours in traffic jams - which equates to five-and-a-half days essentially wasted.

Head of navigation at TomTom Heiko Schilling pointed out that the UK was home to nine out of the top 100 most congested cities globally.

"Overall congestion is up by an average of one per cent [year-on-year] in the UK - a mild increase but an increase nonetheless. These results show that there's still a lot of work to be done," he added.

The expert also seemed optimistic that autonomous vehicles and car-sharing schemes could eventually alleviate the problem of congestion around the world.

And if this has had you feeling gloomy about all the time you're spending behind the wheel, spare a thought for drivers in Mumbai. This was found to be the planet's worst city for traffic jams, with an average of 65 per cent extra travel time due to queues.