The average British driver lost 62 hours due to traffic jams last year, at an estimated cost of £581 per person.
The report by traffic data provider Inrix also ranked London just ahead of Paris as the most congested city in Europe. Drivers in the capital typically spent 101 hours going nowhere, increasing the cost of congestion to £942.
If you want to beat the jams – and who doesn’t, frankly? – there are a number of ways to find the latest traffic information. Before you set off and during your journey, here are some of the best ways to avoid a delay.
Whether you’re using a satellite navigation system built into the car, an aftermarket unit or your smartphone, having access to live traffic information can be extremely useful.
Simply set your destination, then allow the GPS technology to work its magic. Some systems will recalculate the route on the fly, while others will alert you to the problem and provide a suggested alternative. You can make the call on whether or not it’s worth making a detour.
We find Google Maps is very reliable, showing you traffic delays in real time and using red, orange or green colour-coding to explain whether your journey time is improving, staying the same or getting longer.
Waze is a community-based traffic and navigation app. In other words, the information it shares and receives is driven by its users. It collects information to provide other ‘Wazers’ with the optimal route to their destination.
Users can also report to the community on traffic, accidents, speed cameras, police speed checks, blocked roads and adverse weather conditions.
Although it’s free to download and use the Waze app, phone and carrier data rates obviously apply. You may be served some adverts as well. Note that navigating via your phone is quite data-intensive, so it could also eat through your allowance if you have a monthly data cap.
In addition to the traffic information provided by satellite navigation systems, it’s also possible to find details of jams by going online.
In England, head to the National Highways website to see a map showing real-time traffic delays on motorways and A-roads. It features a colour-coded road atlas, ranging from green for ‘moving freely’ to black for ‘not moving’. There’s also a chequered design for ‘closed’.
You can see details of the congestion, including the length and reason for the delay, along with when National Highways expects traffic flow to return to normal. Similar services are available from Traffic Scotland and Traffic Wales, along with in Northern Ireland from TrafficWatchNI.
Although it might be tempting to listen to your favourite ‘Are we nearly there yet?’ playlist or The Motoring Podcast on the way to the beach, it can help to listen to the radio.
BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 5 Live both provide traffic updates throughout the day, or you could listen to one of the BBC local radio stations. Alternatively, tune in to one of the many commercial radio stations across the country.
Your car radio probably has a ‘TP’ (Traffic Programme) function. This allows it to interrupt whatever you are listening to and automatically tune into nearby traffic updates.
If you like to plan ahead, grab five minutes to check for any roadworks on your proposed route to a Christmas get-together. It might be worth finding an alternative route, especially during peak times, such as on Friday evenings.
Be warned: some major road improvement schemes are carried out at night, so travelling late doesn’t always pay off – as anyone who has sat in gridlock on the M25 after midnight can confirm.
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