With the start of the school year, Belgium is back in traffic jams
The various indicators are clear: traffic jams are once again a part of the landscape, but the extent of the phenomenon remains difficult to gauge with precision.
During the month of September 2021, on average 1,512 minutes – or 25 hours – of additional travel time accumulated in the files in Belgium during the peak of daily congestion. This is what emerges from the figures of Flitsmeister, a branch of the Be-Mobile traffic monitoring company, which L’Echo was able to consult. An increase of 29% compared to September 2020 figures which seems to confirm what many have seen: traffic jams are back on the roads of the country.
A return that must however be qualified. Comparing the data with those of 2019, before the health crisis, we observe a decrease of 19% in the number of additional minutes accumulated on a daily average over the month of September. Traffic jams therefore do not seem to waste more time for commuters than before the pandemic.
Larger files
The figures made available to us by the Proximus subsidiary, which aggregates data from navigation applications (Flitsmeister, Coyote), vehicle fleets and field meters, represent files and additional time. to pay the most congested minute of each day compared to a fluid situation. Data which is therefore not intended to compare peak periods as such, but which makes it possible to assess the evolution of traffic photos over time.
Traffic jams are therefore not greater in terms of cumulative additional time, but in kilometers, they are on average 11% longer than in September 2019. A figure that even rises to 78% if we compare it to the start of the 2020 school year.
Longer files but less additional time, a rather counter-intuitive finding that does not surprise Jorn de Vries, director of Flitsmeister. “A 5 km traffic jam where people are at a standstill will waste more time than a 10 km traffic jam where we are traveling at 30 km / h. So it seems that we have more extensive caps, but which do not necessarily have a very significant impact on travel times, “he explains.
“A 5 km traffic jam where people are stationary will waste more time than a 10 km traffic jam where you are traveling at 30 km / h.”
The online data from the supplier of maps and GPS Tomtom, which focus on Brussels, signal a turning point at the start of the school year. While traffic jams in the capital remained below their 2019 level for the first eight months of 2021, the trend has reversed since September. We observe 2 to 7% more “congestion” than compared to a standard week in 2019. A statistic that goes up to 17% for the first week of October.
More car for leisure?
“The data from TomTom is interesting because it states an increase in traffic jams on Friday and weekends, which suggests an increase in the use of the car for shopping and leisure rather than for commuting, ”points out Georges Fuchs, consultant for the Stratec mobility design office.
However, TomTom’s observation should also be qualified when looking at traffic volumes. “The number of cars counted in Brussels tunnels is higher than September 2020 but still 6% lower than in September 2019», Explains the spokesperson for Bruxelles-Mobilité, Camille Thiry.
In a recent communicated Press, the Flemish traffic management center also pointed out a drop in the number of cars on the roads in September (-5.5%), But congestion levels equal to or even higher than in 2019 for the first two weeks of September.
“At the moment, it is impossible to know for sure how [les] of mobility have evolved. ”
“For the time being, it’s complicated to have a transversal vision based on fragmented data, by mode“, asks Georges Fuchs.” The only way to objectify the impacts of covid on mobility is to go through a mobility study which makes it possible to estimate the modal share of each means of transport. (…) 20% of public transport users are still missing. For now it is impossible to know for sure how their mobility developments have evolved. ”
We asked the Walloon administration for the figures of its automatic counts, but Sofico was unable to follow up.
CV
- The files are longer in kilometers but not in additional time, according to data from Flitsmeister.
- Traffic volumes remain below their 2019 level.
- Without a mobility study, it is impossible to determine with certainty how mobility habits have evolved since the start of the pandemic.