Survey finds drivers on M606 are hit by regular tailbacks - but speeds are an improvement on last year

The motorway has an average speed of 40.68mph, according to a report into the slowest motorways in Britain.

The report analysed data from 527,000 vehicles over the period of a year; the most sluggish motorways have been highlighted using average speeds of the vehicles using them.

The M25 round London was ranked as the slowest motorway in Britain with speeds averaging just 25mph, in a report by vehicle tracking company Satrak.

This is almost half the average speed of the M602, in Greater Manchester, which found itself in tenth place at 48mph.

The M4 between London and South Wales was second-slowest with an average speed of 30.46mph.

Mo Shafiq, owner of BWR Haulage Limited, based at Greenhill Mills, in Florence Street, Bradford, agreed with the findings, saying his firm’s fleet of 20 lorries uses the motorway every day to travel across the UK and encounters daily problems with slow traffic.

He said: “It’s frustrating travelling on the M606.

“I do agree with the findings of the survey, it is one of the slowest motorways in the country.

“I think it would be improved if the hard shoulder would be open all of the time.”

The M606’s third-slowest ranking marks an improvement on drivers’ average speed from the previous year.

The Bradford motorway was identified as the slowest in the UK in a separate report released in October last year. The M606 had an average speed of 24.62mph then.

A Highways England spokesman said it had invested in improving the infrastructure of the M606 to help keep motorists moving.

He said: “We know roads play a vital role in keeping the country moving, and that includes the M606 too.

“We are delivering £15 billion of Government investment – the biggest in a generation – to help cut congestion and improve journeys on England’s Strategic Road Network.

“The M606 is a short section of motorway, with three junctions.

“In December, we added an extra lane to the Chain Bar roundabout - where the M606 and M62 (J26) meet - to ease congestion and add capacity for the 70,000 vehicles using this junction every day. We are also committed to responding promptly when incidents do occur and have a target that at least 85 per cent of all motorway incidents should be cleared within one hour.”

The slowest cities in Britain were also analysed, which took data from 3,345,025 vehicles over the same period of time.

After measuring the data, Cambridge was found to be the slowest city in Britain with average speeds totalling just 13 mph. None of the top ten slowest cities exceeded 20mph.

Through the use of tracking software in commercial vehicles, the average speed limits across the UK were captured from January 1 to June 30 last year. This report was carried out by RAM Tracking, a Leeds-based company which provides GPS vehicle tracking systems for business fleets.