Frequently asked questions

How do I find traffic data for a specific road?

Street-level road traffic count point locations can be navigated using the map on the count points page. Selecting a count point will take you to the count point profile, which includes Annual Average Daily Flow (AADF) estimates for the road link as well as the option to download raw traffic data for days where traffic surveys have been conducted.

When will the website be updated with the most recent traffic estimates?

Street-level traffic estimates are updated alongside the annual road traffic estimates in Great Britain publication. The provisional release date for the next publication can be found on the Department for Transport forthcoming publications page.

Why does the map not include traffic data for the road that I live on?

There is a count point and an associated AADF estimate for every major road link in Great Britain. Due to the large number of minor roads in Great Britain it is not possible to count them all, instead a representative sample of minor road sites are counted each year. This minor road sample is refreshed every 10 years. There are many minor roads which have not been in any previous minor road sample.

Why is there no recent data for the road that I live on?

If the latest traffic estimates for your road are many years old, this means that the road was previously in the minor road sample but is not in the latest sample.

Why do the ‘raw counts’ files only give traffic for one day of the year?

Traffic surveys are held on both major and minor roads over a 12 hour period on days in the year which have been assigned the status: ‘neutral day’. A neutral day is a weekday between March and October, excluding all public holidays and school holidays; this is because it is on any of these days that traffic is expected to behave similarly. There are usually 110 neutral counting days in a calendar year. Details of how these 12 hour counts are used to estimate AADF for a road are given in the background quality report.

Why does the ‘count method’ say that an AADF was “Estimated using previous year's AADF on this link”?

It is not possible to count every single link every year; therefore, the sections of road are surveyed on either an annual basis or on a cycle of every 2 years, every 4 years or every 8 years (and in Scotland and Wales, every 12 years). This means not every link in the major road network has a 12 hour count in each year, and therefore the AADF has been calculated using the previous year’s AADF on the link.

Do you publish monthly, daily, or hourly traffic estimates?

All street-level traffic estimates are made at the annual level. This is because the methodology for calculating traffic estimates is based primarily on estimating AADF from individual 12 hour traffic surveys. The methodology does not exist to calculate robust estimates for a shorter time period from the same data sources.

Daily indexed road traffic estimates for Great Britain are published as part of the Daily domestic transport use by mode series.

Quarterly road traffic estimates for Great Britain are published as part of the Provisional road traffic estimates.

The TRA03 series from the annual road traffic estimates include traffic summaries for Great Britain by month of the year, day of the week and hour of the day.

Where can I find information about road safety statistics?

Statistics and data about reported collisions and casualties on public roads in Great Britain can be found on the road safety statistics page.

Where can I find information about vehicle speeds?

Data and statistics about road congestion and travel times on the Strategic Road Network and local 'A' roads can be found on the road congestion and travel time collection page.

Data and statistics about the vehicle speed compliance on roads in Great Britain can be found on the vehicle speed compliance statistics collection page.

Where can I find information about speeding fines?

The Department for Transport does not hold any statistics regarding speeding fines. Statistics regarding fixed penalty notices and other outcomes for motoring offences are published by the Home Office in the police powers and procedures England and Wales statistics collection.

Are there any available data sources which provide more granular data estimates than those which are available on this website?

The road traffic statistics collection page on GOV.UK contains all of the Department for Transport’s summarised road traffic statistics. This includes summarised data tables with summaries varying by vehicle type, road type, locations, and time periods.

National Highways publish data from their network of automatic traffic counters, covering the entire Strategic Road Network in England, on their webTRIS website. National Highways can be contacted at the following email address: info@highwayengland.co.uk.

Transport Scotland manage a network of automatic traffic counters across Scotland. The statistician group can be contacted at the following email address: transtat@transport.gov.scot.

Transport for London manage a network of automatic traffic counters across London. You can enquire about their data by submitting a Freedom of Information request to the following address: FOI@tfl.gov.uk.

Your local council may be able to offer more granular traffic data for your area than the Department for Transport can. You can find your local council’s website using the Find your local council tool.