During one hour on a day in September Belfast hit record-breaking gridlock, with hundreds of traffic jams across more than 100 miles of road reported around the city.
This was the worst day for commuters over a month of snarl ups and long journey times linked in part to the closure of the Lisburn to Belfast line.
Translink announced on Thursday it plans to begin rail services on the line from Sunday week along with the Enterprise service to and from Dublin.
Data from leading traffic specialists, TomTom, a company used also by the Department for Infrastructure to track information, reveals just how jammed up traffic was over the last month, with congestion levels far above before the July closure of the Lisburn line and significantly higher than the same time last year.
Over the month, traffic jams and journey times were generally at their highest midweek, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, but the single worst rush hour recorded was on a Monday in mid-September.
On September 16 at 8am, there were 252 traffic jams across 121 miles, or 196km of roads. An hour later, there was little respite with 247 snarl ups across 108 miles.
TomTom, which pulls data anonymously from millions of on board systems and apps across hundreds of cities, records congestion level as a percentage of what it would be at “free flow” level, at zero in late evening and overnight.
“The level of congestion is calculated from all the travel times recorded by TomTom throughout the day, and by comparing them with the lowest travel times (i.e. in a totally fluid situation) in the same area,” said TomTom’s Emilio Gutierrez Zorrilla.
“An increase in travel times is therefore expressed as a percentage rate of congestion. For example, a congestion level of 40 at a given time means that, on average, journey times across the entire network at that time were 40% longer than under free-flow conditions.”
On that same day in September, the congestion level was at at 105%, believed to be a record.
Journey times during midweek over the last two weeks were substantially higher than normal, including five occasions motorists were taking what would be more than 20 minutes to travel a distance of 10 kilometres, or 6.2 miles, the TomTom Traffic Index reported.
The index also reveals the worst time for traffic jams and congestion is between 5pm and 6pm on a Tuesday. On Wednesday morning, the index reported 198 traffic jams across approximately 100 miles of road.
Resumption of rail services, particularly the re-opening of the Belfast to Lisburn line, will, it is hoped, ease traffic congestion significantly, but there are other issues, Wesley Johnston, a researcher and commentator on Northern Ireland roads, told the Irish News.
“As far as I can tell the addition of two new pedestrian crossings at the new transport hub is a major contributor and these are necessary to get people to the new station safely,” Mr Johnston said.
“Unfortunately there isn’t a quick fix other than perhaps looking at the signal timings on those crossings.
“In fact it will get worse for a while as the south end of Durham Street is due to be closed this autumn for the demolition of Boyne Bridge.”
Infrastructure Minister John O’Dowd told the Irish News: “I welcome news of continued progress at Belfast Grand Central Station with preliminary plans to commence rail services from Belfast Grand Central Station on Sunday 13th October.
“My Department has been working closely with Translink to complete ensure the Rail Safety Certification process and I look forward to seeing trains operate into and out of this flagship station.”