Paris has Europe's worst traffic jams
Drivers in Paris waste 70 hours a year sitting in traffic jams; the city is Europe’s worst for bouchons
PARIS has the worst traffic jams in Europe and drivers can lose up to 70 hours a year if they are on the road on Tuesdays between 8.00 and 9.00.
Jams can add 10 minutes to a simple 30-minute journey to work and back.
A study showed that London is next worst, then the heavily urbanised Ruhr basin in Germany, although the UK as a whole suffered the heaviest country-wide delays, with major blackspots in Manchester on Fridays between 17.00 and 18.00 and the Blackwall Tunnel in London.
Paris has major embouteillages every day at the Périphérique entry points of Porte d'Ivry, Porte d'Italie, Porte de Sèvres, Porte de Bercy and Porte de Saint-Mandé, where the average traffic speed is just 23kph.
The most jammed city after Paris is Lyon, although it is only half as bad as Paris, costing drivers 34 hours a year. The access from the Autoroute du Soleil at Quais de Saône - Vieux Lyon is the heaviest clogged, with traffic speeds dropping under 20kph.
Following Paris and Lyon are Lille, Limoges, Bordeaux, Rouen, Marseille, Grenoble, Nantes and Poitiers.
Reducing traffic has been a major project for Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoë since he was elected in 2001 and he has built a network of bus lanes and cycleways. He also launched the Vélib bikeshare network of 10,000 bicycles.
You can check how bad the Paris jams are on the Direction Interdépartementale des Routes Ile-de-France Sytadin webpage here.
Traffic management company Inrix gathered the data for the survey from millions of car journeys across Europe, linked to information from road sensors.
