Count the cost of congestion

A familiar story - eight weeks of roadworks on a busy stretch of the M25 (is there a quiet stretch?) 60,000 vehicles a day delayed by 30 minutes each. The cost of a delay calculated as between £4 and £30 an hour, depending on the type of journey. An average cost of £17 an hour, for each of those 60,000 cars, lorries, vans and bikes, gives a total financial loss of £510,000 a day; £20.4 million over the eight week period. And that's just one set of roadworks.

The total estimated annual cost of traffic delays is up to £20billion or 182m working days. 25% of jams are caused by unpredictable events such as accidents, with an extra 10% contributed by planned roadworks. The remaining 65% are put down solely to volume of traffic, which is predicted to rise by 40% by the end of 2010. The picture for our roads does not look rosy as the costs mount. To contribute towards these mounting costs the Department for Transport would like a charge of up to £1.34 a mile to pay the price of congestion. This is in addition to all other costs faced by the motorist - road tax, MOT and maintenance costs, car insurance premium and the rising price of fuel.

Date - 15/09/2006