HedgehogCycling.co.uk

Yorkshire cycling website

More traffic than ever before in 2015

13th February 2016

There was more traffic than ever before on Britain's roads in 2015, according to a DfT report published on 11th February 2016. 

The figure given by the report for the total distance vehicles travelled on Britain's roads in 2015, is 317.8 billion miles. This is 2.2% higher than 2014, and 1.1% higher than the pre-recession peak.

The type of traffic which rose the most was vans, which increased by 6.1% in 2015 compared with 2014.

The DfT says that the increase in traffic reflects the growth of 2.2% in the UK economy, and cheaper petrol and diesel prices.

There's a breakdown by road type. Minor rural roads showed the biggest increase in traffic, at 5.2%, which is a concern to people who like to cycle, as we often choose to ride on minor rural roads. Motorway traffic was up 2.4%. (This is less of a concern to cyclists).

DfT graph showing road traffic

The extra traffic on the roads is reducing average speeds in the morning peak, according to another DfT report. It was 23.4mph on local A roads across England in 2015. Speeds have fallen for three and half years. Comparing October, November and December 2015 with the same months a year earlier, there were speed decreases of 2.3%, 3.0%, and 2.9% respectively.

London's average speed during morning rush hour is the lowest, at 14.6mph in the year to December 2015, down 4.5% on the year before.

DfT graph showing average speed

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