Birmingham has the slowest moving rush hour traffic of Britain’s five major regional cities, a major report has revealed.
Fifteen per cent of drivers get stuck in queues on key inner city routes in the city, according to a “go-slow” table.
Of five cities surveyed by the AA, Birmingham had the slowest-moving traffic, followed by Glasgow, Sheffield, Leeds and Manchester.
The AA plans to use teams of motorbike patrolmen to cut through traffic to get to breakdowns.
The AA, which carried out the survey with transport information company ITIS Holdings, said just one minute a day of queueing for cars travelling along three major roads into a city can waste 900,000 litres of fuel a year and add 645 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions – the equivalent of switching on 2,000 street lights.
The introduction of patrolmen in Birmingham follows a successful three-month trial in central London, during which motorbikes got to the majority of breakdowns at least a third faster than vans.
A total of 15 per cent of drivers were stuck in morning rush hour traffic on the A41 Soho Road, the A435 Alcester Road and the A456 Broad Street, the survey found. On routes in Glasgow 12.9 per cent of drivers were stuck in traffic, in Sheffield the figure was 11 per cent, in Leeds 11.1 and Manchester 10.7.
AA president Edmund King said: “As 15 per cent of drivers are stuck in queues during the morning peak in Birmingham, we want to make sure our patrols are not stuck in the same queues. A broken down car often causes disproportionate congestion so we want to get to those cars and get them moving as quickly as possible.”
Meanwhile, another report has revealed today that more than half of smaller firms have cut down on car travel and taken other “green” measures.
