Public Attitudes to Road Networks

A Government survey reveals the public’s attitudes to road network performance and use.

As expected a large number (86%) of adults in the UK have driven on a motorway in the last 12 months. Out of those, almost 1 in 5 use them regularly, for instance at least twice a week or more. However, despite the obvious commute to work the majority of reasons (63%) were to visit family or friends, which is actually quite positive.

At least the British public are using the roads for happy social occasions rather than being forced to by work. The majority (83%) believed that congestion on both motorways and urban roads was a very serious or serious problem in this country.

21% of respondents experienced congestion most of the time on their most frequent journey, but this was a decrease from the figure back in 2007. 20% said that congestion on major routes such as motorways is the worse congestion problem, 80% said that congestion around towns was the worse problem.

When asked about recent experiences of motorway congestion, just over a half of the respondents reported ‘not knowing how long a journey will take’ as the worst problem caused by congestion on motorways.

To avoid congestion almost half of the cohort said they routinely set out at different times than they would have liked. Around a third (32%) said that they ‘take a different route/avoid the motorway’. 5% said that they decided not to make the journey.

When presented with a list of possible solutions for tackling congestion, about one in three respondents supported the idea of ‘widening of motorways to 4 lanes each way’, whereas 13% supported ‘adding a lane and charge a toll for it at the busiest times’.

E. Dooley

07/07/2009