Traffic in Great Britain: Quarter 2 2006

The Department for Transport has today published National Statistics on Traffic in Great Britain, including analyses by vehicle type and road class, for the second quarter of 2006.

These provisional figures indicate that estimated traffic levels rose by 0.2 per cent between Q2 2005 and Q2 2006. Other key results, comparing the provisional Q2 2006 estimates with the final estimates for the same quarter one year earlier (Q2 2005) include:

Car traffic was virtually unchanged

Light van traffic was 4 per cent higher

Goods vehicle traffic rose by 2 per cent

Traffic on motorways rose by 2 per cent

Traffic on both Urban A roads and Minor Urban roads fell by 2 per cent

Traffic on Rural A roads increased by 2 per cent with the estimate of traffic on Minor Rural roads showing an increase of 1 per cent.

Notes

1. The figures relate to traffic, measured in terms of vehicle kilometres, and sometimes known as the volume of traffic. This is not the same as congestion. For example, traffic levels could increase without increasing congestion if traffic is more evenly spread during the day, with less during peak periods and more at other times. Congestion has a number of consequences, such as causing delays and making journey times unreliable.
2. The Department has recently undertaken a Quality Review of the road traffic estimates. The review identified a number of concerns with the robustness of the quarterly estimates for a number of vehicle types. These concerns arise from the fact that these estimates are based on relatively small numbers of specific vehicles captured by the sample of counters.
3. Further investigations have confirmed that these estimates lack the sufficient level of robustness for publication purposes. Indeed, their continued publication could present a misleading picture of the trends in traffic for these vehicle types. It has therefore been decided to suspend publishing the following estimates until further work has been undertaken, including exploring possible options improving the estimation methodology in future:
4. • Quarterly pedal cycles estimates
   • Quarterly estimates of two-wheeled motor vehicles, buses and coaches (which make up the 'other motor vehicles')
   • Quarterly estimates of goods vehicles on minor roads
5. DfT will continue to publish annual estimates for all of these categories, where the same concerns do not apply
6. The quarterly estimates are based mainly on data at 152 sites. Caution should be taken in drawing conclusions about longer term trends from a single quarter's or year's estimates.

Publication details

Published on 10 August 2006 by Transport Statistics

The next quarterly bulletin will be published on Thursday 9 November 2006.

E-mail roadtraff.stats@dft.gov.ukfor queries concerning survey results

For information about release of this product see National Statistics Online