Accredited official statistics: Travel time measures for the Strategic Road Network and local ‘A’ roads: January to December 2023

Congestion on the Strategic Road Network (motorways and ‘A’ roads managed by Highways England), and on locally managed ‘A’ roads for January to December 2023.

Published: 03 October 2024
By Chris Haycock

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Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to. You are welcome to contact us directly by emailing congestion statistics with any comments about how we meet these standards.

Revised Figures

On Thursday 3 October 2024, travel time statistics for the local ‘A’ roads were revised. The revision stems from a change in the provision of data following discussions with our suppliers and is to ensure consistency of the dataset moving forwards. See the technical note for more information.

This adjustment results in minor changes to the figures, but it is important to note that these are minor and that revisions do not impact the overall trends observed.

Although all data previously published is valid, we recommend users who have previously downloaded or utilized the data to refer to the most recent dataset

Explore the interactive maps showing the average delay and average speed on the Strategic Road Network and Local ‘A’ Roads in England, in 2023.

On the Strategic Road Network (SRN) in 2023:

the average speed was 57.0 mph, down 1.9% from 58.1 mph in 2022 and down 1.7% from 58.0 mph in 2019
the average delay was 10.5 seconds per vehicle per mile (spvpm), up 12.9% from 9.3 spvpm in 2022 and up 10.5% from 9.5 spvpm in 2019

On local ‘A’ roads in England in 2023:

the average speed was 23.0 mph, down 2.1% from 23.5 mph in 2022 and up 0.4% from 22.9mph in 2019
the average delay was 47.9 spvpm, up 5.3% from 45.5 spvpm in 2022 and down 0.6% from 48.2 spvpm in 2019

Please note that figures for the SRN and local ‘A’ roads are not directly comparable.

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Updates to this page Published 7 March 2024 Last updated 3 October 2024 + show all updates 3 October 2024 A CTA box has been added, informing users of changes to the series in subsequent publications. These changes affect figures but not observed trends.

7 March 2024 First published.

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