New research from an influential traffic analyst has found that Britain is rated eighth in the world for traffic jams and the delays are costing each driver on average £894.

Analysts from Inrix have revealed what many already knew, that London is the most congested city, with some drivers in peak time getting stuck for 149 hours. The A404/A501 in the UK’s capital has the honour of being noted as the most congested road, with commuters losing 44 hours last year. London shared the slowest city title with Scottish capital Edinburgh, with the average speed of the final mile of a journey just 10mph.

Trevor Reed, transportation analyst at Inrix, said London suffers from having ‘very little road space and a whole lot of demand’.

He said: “You have very severe congestion and a massive, relatively high earning population.

‘UK cities are quite a bit older and a lot denser than American cities. London is over 2,000 years old.

“When you develop around walking, and horse and buggy, and everything but cars, the urban environment does not handle (cars) all that well.”

Mr Reed added: “You can reach a tipping point with a city. You add just enough cars to make nothing work. Sometimes you add one or two per cent more cars, and it causes a vicious cycle of congestion to set in.”

Cardiff saw the highest growth in congestion, up five per cent to 87 hours per year, but it wasn’t all bad news with Nottingham demonstrating a decrease of 17 per cent to 78 hours, making it the biggest drop in the UK top ten.

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