Road traffic in Great Britain

The Department for Transport has published National Statistics on Traffic in Great Britain, including analyses by vehicle type and road class, for the third quarter of 2007.

These provisional figures indicate that estimated traffic levels rose by 1.1 per cent between Q3 2006 and Q3 2007. Other key results, comparing the provisional Q3 2007 estimates with the final estimates for the same quarter one year earlier (Q3 2006), include:

Car traffic decreased by 1 per cent

Light van traffic increased by 12 per cent

Goods vehicle traffic increased by 3 per cent

Traffic on minor urban roads and rural A roads rose by 6 per cent and 1 per cent respectively

Traffic on minor rural roads was virtually unchanged

Traffic on motorways and urban A roads fell by 1 per cent and 3 per cent respectively

To put this into context, based on the 2006 final annual estimates, cars account for 79 per cent of all motor vehicle traffic, light vans (13 per cent), goods vehicles (6 per cent), and other vehicles (2 per cent).

This quarterly bulletin also includes experimental statistics on the PSA target used to monitor congestion on motorways and trunk roads in England. Between the baseline year (August 2004 - July 2005) and the latest year (September 2006 - August 2007):

Average vehicle delay on the slowest 10% of journeys rose from 3.78 to 4.16 minutes per 10 miles. The average journey time on these journeys rose from 13.4 to 13.8 minutes per 10 miles.