Cost Of The Queue: The Impact Of Traffic On British Business

Traffic is the bane of the commercial driver and fleet manager in the UK. It can play havoc on scheduling, lead to disappointed customers, increase stress and strain on the workforce and cause fuel consumption to rocket.

All of this is dreadful for the individual business and its employees, but the impact to the wider UK economy is also quite shocking.

In 2016, TomTom Telematics undertook a study to try to quantify what the impact is. It estimated that for businesses operating commercial vehicles, the cost could be £767 million per year across the UK’s busiest cities and towns. Of this, £237 million is lost in London due to queues and the large number of commercial vehicles used in the area. Manchester is next, with nearly £160 million, and Birmingham follows at £80 million.

For the drivers themselves, Belfast is considered the worst – it’s estimated they lose more than a month’s worth of working days every year sitting in traffic. Manchester and Edinburgh reported similar figures.

Studies by INRIX and the Centre for Economics and Business Research estimate traffic will cost the UK economy a total of £21 billion per year by 2030. It’s currently around £13 billion.

It’s important, then, for both individual business and the UK economy that new ways of managing congestion are explored. For fleet managers, this can come in the form of telematics that can assist with more intelligent route planning and driver scheduling. These days, technology can automatically react to road conditions and adapt plans in real time.

This can help a fleet manager manage a driver’s workload and stress, make fuel consumption more efficient and ensure jobs are completed on time.

If you’d like to know more about how technology can help you manage the challenges facing you today, get in touch to find out about our range of state-of-the-art telematics products.

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