Traffic jams went down this year, for the first time since 2015, according to the Be-Mobile barometer, published on Friday.
However, Belgium’s roads remained congested for a longer time than in 2015-2017.
The total duration of traffic jams went down from 2,964 hours in 2018 to 2,747 in 2019, Be-Mobile reported, noting that this was the first time since the barometer’s creation in 2015 that the number of hours lost to traffic jams had decreased from one year to the next.
Nevertheless, the road network remained congested for a longer time than in 2017 (2,699 hours) and preceding years, such as 2015 (2,418 hours).
The road information service makes a distinction between structural traffic jams, which are queues that occur daily at morning and evening peak hours (between 100 and 250 kilometres cumulatively), and exceptional traffic jams, those above 300 kms - usually caused by bad weather.
Topping the list of the 10 most congested periods in 2019 is the morning of 1 October, with 477 kms of lines, due to heavy rain. In fact, four of the year’s most congested days were in October, marked by abundant rainfall – 40% more than usual.
These figures are dwarfed by the 590 kms of queues registered on 2 March 2018 and blamed on winter rains.
The Brussels Times
