Brougham Street to Edinburgh City Bypass named in top five most congested UK roads outside of London

An Edinburgh route has been ranked among the UK’s five most congested roads outside of London for this year.

The journey from A700 Brougham Street to the Edinburgh Bypass, the A702 South, was ranked fifth in the most congested roads excluding London in a report conducted by INRIX.

The 2021 INRIX Global Traffic Scorecard identifies and ranks congestion and mobility trends across more than 1,000 cities, across 50 countries, including the UK.

The Edinburgh journey recorded an average delay time of five minutes, with its average peak time being at 4pm.

In a report conducted by INRIX, the journey from A700 Brougham Street to the The City of Edinburgh Bypass, the A702 South, nabbed fifth place in the most congested roads excluding London (Photo: Google).

In 2020, 11 hours were lost on this Edinburgh journey by the average driver.

Outside of London, Belfast came first with its busy route from the A644 East to the M62 Church Lane, with an average delay time of six minutes.

A Birmingham journey came second (A435 South, Haden Circus Roundabout to Woodthorpe Rd), a Liverpool route (A5058 Queens Drive East, A59 County Rd to Bowring Park Rd) third and another Birmingham (A400 North Worcester Road to A451 Roundabout) journey fourth.

London’s A503 East Bound finished in the list’s top spot, from Camden High Street to B152 St Ann’s Road, which had an average delay time of 11 minutes.

The report found UK drivers lost a total of 73 hours due to traffic, down 42 hours from 2019.

At the global level, London topped the list of cities most impacted by traffic congestion, with drivers losing 148 hours a year to congestion (-1 per cent from 2019) followed by Paris, Brussels, Moscow and New York City.

In Europe, St Petersburg saw the greatest reductions in delays compared to 2019, dropping 50 per cent. Nimes in France, however, saw congestion nearly double (a 98 per cent increase) compared to 2019.

London drivers lost an average 148 hours – more than six day – due to traffic in a year.

Exeter saw the largest increase in congestion with delays increasing by 27 per cent from 2019 and Belfast saw the biggest drop in congestion with time lost down 47 per cent.

Throughout the country, delays on the busiest corridors decreased versus 2019. In 2020, the five busiest corridors were all in London – the A503 E/B, the A2 W/B, and A406 North Circular Road E/B (with 42, 39 and 38 hours respectively). Outside of London, the busiest corridors were Belfast’s A644 East, Birmingham’s A435 South and Liverpool’s Queens Drive, with 15, 14 and 14 hours respectively.

The report concluded: “[The year] 2021, like 2020, was an atypical year in terms of surface transportation.

"Working from home continued to put downward pressure on trips, especially to downtown areas, more so in the US than abroad.

"Amid vaccine rollouts and the relative relaxing of restrictions, cities and countries have battled Covid-19 differently, resulting in varying effects on their respective roadways.

"For example, metro areas like Washington DC have vaccination rates above 70 per cent, yet that hasn’t necessarily resulted in a return to normal traffic congestion, as hours lost to traffic is still down 65 per cent.

“Public transit use will likely continue to make small steps toward pre-Covid levels of ridership, but will take years to recover, especially public transit systems that are focused on downtowns and city centres.”

A message from the Editor:Thank you for reading this article. We're more reliant on your support than ever as the shift in consumer habits brought about by Coronavirus impacts our advertisers.

If you haven't already, please consider supporting our trusted, fact-checked journalism by taking out a digital subscription.