Traffic England
Live traffic information updated in real time
This area contains current and future headlines regarding the traffic network.
Introduction
- Avoid the jams...
- Current Motorway Information
- Events table
- How is traffic information displayed on the website?
- How is traffic information presented on the phone service?
- Terms of Use
- Traffic Cameras
- Traffic England explained
- Understanding Delay Information
- Web Browser compatibility
-
Avoid the jams...
Ever wasted time sat in a jam, missed an important meeting or kept a loved one waiting thanks to traffic? Ever wished you knew where the delays were before setting off?
This website brings you live traffic information for motorways and A-roads in England so you can avoid delays by changing your route, altering the time you travel, or even leaving the car at home and taking the train instead.
With Traffic England you can monitor your regular commute or plan a business trip or family holiday.
Businesses can benefit too by improving logistics, getting the most out of haulage assets or planning meetings to ease everybody’s journey.
-
Current Motorway Information
The Current Motorway Information feature allows a single motorway to be displayed in a schematic form to provide information about incidents, roadworks, current weather, average speed, electronic gantry message signs and central reservation matrix signals. You can select and de-select each of the event types or message signs or average speed as well as displaying all event information text or just a simple summarised view.
The speed information provides the average speed between junctions and the road itself is colour coded to give a quick indication of speed banding to help you see where the lowest average speeds are being experienced; red indicates the average speed is less than 30mph, orange indicates that the average speed is between 30mph and 50mph, while blue indicates the average speed is above 50mph. When the Road appears “Greyed out” this indicates no speed data is available.
-
Events table
The Events Table can be found under the ’Event Information’ tab
This feature allows you to view incident, roadwork and other event information to match you search criteria. The search options allow you to select a road, direction, type of information and by date. When the information is displayed it can be sorted into order by clicking the appropriate column filter arrow. The date feature helps journey planning as it allows you to look at future known roadworks and other events to see if delays have been predicted for a particular road. By clicking on a particular incident or roadwork you will be taken to the map display where the event is located.
-
How is traffic information displayed on the website?
The website uses an interactive map to display traffic conditions and events. Icons pinpoint incidents and roadworks and show every sign that’s displaying travel advice.
Ticking the box for Future Conditions will show all the planned events we know about and hovering over any icon will display full details. You can also look ahead to any date or time by using the Events Table.
Constantly updated, real-time traffic conditions are shown through colour-codes with green or blue showing when traffic is flowing freely on A roads and motorways, yellow for hold-ups between 15 and 30 minutes and purple for 30 minutes or more. See ‘Understanding Delay Information’ for more information.
Each type of information can be switched on or off so you can see as much or as little as you want. You can click on the map or use the zoom bar to look in more detail or pan out for a broader picture. The arrows at the edges let you can move around the map or follow a route.
As an alternative to the map display, you can view information in the ‘Events Table’ or the ‘Current Motorway Information’ which can be found under the ‘Event Information’ tab.
-
How is traffic information presented on the phone service?
The same, high-quality traffic information is available during your journey from the Traffic England phone service on 08700 660 115*
The phone service responds to keypad or voice commands and you can select information by road or region. Any event which is expected to cause delays of more than 10 minutes is listed. Accidents and incidents are listed before roadworks.
Delays are described as slight if the hold-up is between 10 and 15 minutes, moderate for delays between 16 and 30 minutes and severe if they exceed half an hour. Help is available by pressing 9 or saying “Help” at any time.
* BT landline calls cost no more than 8p a minute, calls from mobiles usually cost more. Do not use a mobile phone while driving.
-
Terms of Use
Content may only be copied, reproduced, posted or transmitted for non-commercial use.
You agree not to adapt, alter or create a derivative work from any of the Content on the Website or to use it for any purpose whatsoever other than for your personal and non-commercial use
-
Traffic Cameras
Traffic Camera images are now available on the Current Motorway Information page. These provide still images from Highways Agency cameras across the network, where available.
There will be occasions when an image will not be available due to operational reasons. When this occurs, the Camera Faulty image will appear in the pop up box instead of the image. Only one image can be displayed at any one time.
Images will be refreshed every 30 seconds and a new image can be obtained by clicking on the word Refresh in the pop up box.
-
Traffic England explained
The Traffic England website and phone service bring you high quality information about the traffic on England’s motorways and major A-roads.
This information comes from the Highways Agency’s National Traffic Control Centre where data from thousands of road-side traffic sensors measuring flow, speed and number of vehicles is combined with information from hundreds of operational partners including the police, HA Traffic Officers, ports and airports, and local highway authorities.
With all this data, disruption can be pinpointed and delays can be accurately calculated, adding up to a comprehensive real-time traffic information service for England.
With Traffic England you can plan your journey and stay one step ahead of the traffic.
-
Understanding Delay Information
Traffic England displays current delays using colour-codes, with green or blue showing when traffic is flowing freely on A roads or motorways, yellow for hold-ups between 15 and 30 minutes and purple for 30 minutes or more.
The colour-codes are based on journey time measurements coming in from equipment out on the network and show the delay measured against the time it would take a vehicle to travel the length of a road if it was completely clear.
Because the measured section (or link) might be up to 20 miles long, any measured delay will combine the effect of all hold ups on a section. Also, because a vehicle has to travel the entire length of a link before its journey time can be measured, delay values will lag slightly behind real time.
So, let’s say a link on an A road has a crash blocking one lane near the start; some minor roadworks slowing traffic with a temporary speed restriction; and a busy roundabout causing a short queue. All three delays would be joined together to give the value shown by the colour code.
The delay time given in the details box of each Event is a value entered by one of our expert operators. It is an estimate of the delay attributed to that particular event.
Obviously, because the colour codes can describe the effect of several separate delay factors, and the event details describe only one, it is quite common for the two numbers to disagree.
-
Web Browser compatibility
Traffic England has been built to work with and tested against Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 5.5 and above, Firefox 1.0 and above, Netscape 6 and above. Users of other browsers may experience minor compatibility problems and where possible it is recommended that users may wish to configure their browsers to emulate Internet Explorer to use this site.