The E1,000 a year jam
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• A lorry using the M25 every day wastes up to 90 hours a year in traffic jams, adding £1,000 to its annual running costs, says the PTA in a major survey of HGV operators.
"The M25 has enabled operators to service much larger areas," it says, "but they are not extracting maximum economic benefits from the motorway because of congestion. The hidden cost of lost deliveries and unreliability is very high." The ETA's figure of £1,000 a year refers only to vehicle operating costs.
The survey also found that one-in-three goods vehicles is being routed away from the M25 to avoid hold-ups. Lorries which do use the motorway are averaging only 69lcm/h, compared with 96km/h in freeflowing conditions, Delay blackspots are between junction 31 and junction 1 (the Dartford tunnel), and in the south-west quadrant at junctions 11-16, where the M3 and M4 join the M25.
"The most important thing is the need for urgent action on plans now being drawn up for improvements on the M25," said the ETA's London and South-East regional director John Guttridge at a press conference last week. "In the short-term we need electronic traffic-flow systems, such as the one already in place between junctions 10 and 19; and increased use of the lane-rental system, by which contractors ,pay for the lane they are using and get a bonus for finishing quickly," he said.
In the long-term, Guttridge suggested that a new orbital route outside the M25 may be the only answer, despite the massive environmental problems it would pose.
The ETA survey also stresses the positive role of the M25. When asked if using the motorway saved time, 97% of operators said yes, and half of them said the improvement has been significant.
One of the respondents summed up the hauliers' general attitude to the motorway: "It's a pain, a pain and a pain, but thank heavens we've got the M25."