London has bene ranked as Europe’s most congested city in the lNRIX 2024 Global Traffic Scorecard.

Drivers in the capital spent an average 101 hours sitting in traffic last year, a 2% increase from the previous year, according to the INRIX report.

There has been a consistent increase in congestion in the city in recent years, from 97 hours in 2022 to 99 hours in 2023.

The A40 Westway in London was judged the most congested road in the UK, with 5pm-6pm being its worst time.

Behind London was its Eurostar-connected neighbour Paris, with 97 hours of delays, followed by Dublin in third place with 81 hours, reports the Guardian.

INRIX estimated the cost to London to be about £3.85bn, which is equivalent to £942 for each of the city’s 4 million drivers.

Bristol and Leeds completed the top three most congested cities in the UK.

In Manchester, there was a 13% increase year-on-year in delays. It had one more hour lost to gridlock than Leeds but ranked below it, when taking into account the city’s relative size.

Birmingham, however, dropped from the second-worst city in the UK to sixth place, after traffic was moving 10% more freely than a year ago.

Bob Pishue, Inrix transportation analyst and author of the report, said: “While the UK did see a slight increase in congestion again this year, overall congestion has remained steady.

“Roadworks in key corridors such as the M25 Wisley interchange caused considerable traffic on a main artery into the capital.

“Interestingly it was cities outside of the capital that saw the greatest increase in congestion, with Manchester seeing a large increase, up 13%.

“While London only had a modest increase in time lost, it still represented half of the entire country’s delay.”

Inrix said London contained most of the worst corridors for traffic delays in the UK because of the “concentration of population, employment and economic activity”.

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