By Briar Lipson & Richard Wellings; Edited by Dr Oliver Marc Hartwich

According to Towards Better Transport, produced in cooperation with Serco and Bevan Brittan LLP, traffic congestion is now endemic, affecting not just large cities but also the core motorway network and small towns. It currently costs the UK economy in the region of £20bn per year, a figure set to rise significantly in the coming years, harming our future economic competitiveness and growth.

The report’s authors, Richard Wellings and Briar Lipson, argue new roads have also tended to be built for political reasons rather than to tackle congestion as transport infrastructure in Britain has become not fit for purpose and detached from consumer demand.