The slowest cities
Getting in and out of town can take some time by car
London, of course, is the slowest city in which to travel by car.
The new research by Moneybarn has revealed the slowest cities in Britain to travel by car,
Several different factors have been ranked including average speed, roads requiring maintenance, average daily traffic flow, and hours lost in congestion. Using these, an overall score out of 10 has been produced for each city in the UK. Furthermore, they have compared these with countries around the world.
Centre point
Unsurprisingly, London was the UK’s slowest city. It experiences low average speeds of a miserable 18mph, and a loss of 69 hours in traffic every year.
Ranking second was Derby, mostly due to a high percentage of roads requiring maintenance (15%). The city had by far the biggest percentage of roadworks causing havoc in the area.
Bristol placed third, with the second-highest amount of hours lost to congestion (37 hours). Its average speed of 18.3 is just 0.3mph faster than London.
The top five slowest cities in the UK
Rank |
City |
Avg speed |
% roads requiring maintenance |
Avg daily traffic flow |
Hours lost to congestion |
Overall score/10 |
1 |
London |
18mph |
4% |
5,498 |
69 |
3.44 |
2 |
Derby |
23.3mph |
15% |
5,533 |
24 |
3.67 |
3 |
Bristol |
18.3mph |
8% |
4,471 |
37 |
4.57 |
4 |
Nottingham |
18.9mph |
9% |
4,756 |
26 |
4.65 |
5 |
Manchester |
17.4mph |
7% |
5,093 |
23 |
4.69 |
Speed capitals
At the other end of the spectrum, the fastest cities to travel by car are Peterborough, Darlington and Bedford, with less than 2% of roads needing maintenance in all three cities, and less than 20 hours lost to traffic each year.
The research applied the same metrics globally, to reveal that Peru is the slowest country in the world to travel by car, with a journey taking 42% longer on average than it should. Colombia and the Philippines were in second and third place, with the highest levels of 53% extra time stuck in traffic.
The full findings are available to view here.