No surprise, the most gridlocked country in Europe is UK

TomTom reveals Europe’s 50 most congested cities for 2011; Brussels is still the number one most congested city, while the UK sits at the top of the most congested countries list .

The most gridlocked country in Europe is the UK according to TomTom’s latest traffic study that reveals some of Europe’s most congested spots. There are 16 UK cities that feature in the top 50. London is in third place even though there was a 0.2% decrease in the amount of traffic. Both Manchester and Edinburgh are in the top ten.

The traffic congestion cost the UK over £8bn a year and it is no surprise that there are many cities from the UK that feature in the top 50 of Europe, said the UK and Ireland director of TomTom, Giles Margerlson.

Those businesses that rely on getting from A to B very quickly can rely on fleet management technology that is available to cut down those journey times by up to 15% by automatically rerouting around the congested area.

Brussels still tops the chart as Europe’s most congested city and it is getting worse showing an increase in traffic since 2010 of 1.2%. But all the news is not bad, since 2010 six of the most congested cities on the continent have reduced traffic significantly.

Wroclaw has dropped by over 2.5% dropping it to fourth out of 50. France’s Toulouse reduced their congestion by 1.9% and they are in fifth place with over 30% of the city roads congested.

Where to escape the traffic

In comparison, the German city of Cologne sits at the bottom of the top 50; only 18.9% of its roads are congested. But Germany still features six times in the overall list.

The data shows that you’ll have the most stress-free trip in Spain, Switzerland, Norway, Hungary, Ireland or the Czech Republic, each of which has only one city in the top 50.

The most positive change of all has been made by Ireland. While Belfast still sits at number 12, there has been a reduction of 2% in traffic congestion over the last year. And Capital city Dublin has reduced its traffic by a staggering 9.7% since 2010 – although at 24.2%, it’s still got some way to go to beat traffic-efficient Cologne.

The complete list of top 50 most congested cities 2011 is as follows.