Figures on road reliability and congestion between July and September have been released by the Department for Transport (DfT) today (November 14th).

Comparing the quarter year-on-year, DfT found motor traffic had increased by 2.3 per cent to 77 billion vehicle miles. It found this was an increase in all areas, with light goods vehicles growing the most (5.1 per cent), followed by heavy goods vehicles (2.7 per cent) and cars (1.9 per cent).

The largest increases were on minor roads, which experienced 3.3 per cent more traffic, with motorways close behind (3.2 per cent) - volumes on A roads were up 1.2 per cent.

Possibly as a result of this increased traffic, the DfT found only 77.4 per cent of trips on the Highways Agency's network ended on time in the 12 months ending in September - this is 0.3 per cent above June's figure. It is also below the peak of 81.5 per cent seen in March last year.