Drivers delayed 8.9 seconds per mile on motorways ~ station of gear

New report reveals scale of hold ups on motorways and A roads, as Highways England misses a number of targets

2016-07-15 15:15

Drivers were held up in traffic for almost 15 minutes every 100 miles on England's motorways and A roads, according to a new official report. That equates to a delay of 8.9 second per mile.

The report by the Office for Road and Rail stated that 89.7 billion miles were driven on the Strategic Road Network (motorways and A roads) over the last year - up five billion over the past four years.

And despite accounting for only two per cent of roads, the Strategic Road Network carried a third of our traffic. Average speeds slowed, too, with cars and trucks now travelling at 59.3mph compared to 61.3mph four years ago.

A new target to reduce delay time has been introduced but the report admitted this would depend on traffic growth and would be difficult to achieve and maintain.

• Plan to allow driving on motorway hard shoulders slammed

These statistics were released as part of Highways England’s annual report. The review stated Highways England has made a “good start” concerning its management of a £15 billion investment in the network by 2020-21.

Highways England beat its targets for maintaining network availability, clearing motorway incidents and maintaining road surface quality among others.

The number of people seriously injured dropped, too, by 4.9 per cent from 2014 to 2015 leading the total KSI number (killed or seriously injured) to drop 3.6 per cent. However, the report claimed focus was still required if Highways England were to meet their target of a 40 per cent KSI drop by 2020.

However, an important target Highways England failed to meet was the user satisfaction rate with only 89.3 per cent of users saying they were “fairly or very satisfied” with the network, falling 0.7 per cent short of the desired 90 per cent target.

What do you think of the motorway and A road network in England? Let us know below...

James McEvoy

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