High fuel costs do job of congestion charge

THE price of fuel and the credit crunch have cut traffic jams by 12 per cent over the last year.

Drivers and companies start to cut down their motoring spending, congestion is reducing and journey times are getting quicker.

And the motorways around Greater Manchester show some of the steepest cuts in journey times.

The M6, M62, and M56 have seen a consistent decrease in both north and southbound journey times over the past year.

Even the M6 experienced a dramatic speeding up between last year and this. The current 66 minutes from Staffordshire to Warrington is more than 5 per cent quicker than last year.

A journey from Liverpool to Manchester on the M62 takes only 27 minutes — 3.5 per cent quicker than a year ago.

Analysts at Trafficmaster measure levels of congestion using a network of 7,500 roadside sensors across 8,000 miles of Britain’s motorways and trunk roads.

However, although journey times across the whole network were cut by an average of 12 per cent, drivers actually slowed down from 63.3 mph to 62.2 mph over the last year as motorists tried to save fuel.

Georgina Read at Trafficmaster said: “Average motorway speeds have reduced as has congestion. This indicates a reduction in the volume of vehicles, especially HGVs, travelling on the roads.”