Traffic congestion on Flemish roads reached unprecedented levels over the past 12 months, setting a new record, according to Statistics Flanders.

The long-standing upward trend in traffic jams has continued, with congestion figures now higher than ever.

The severity of traffic jams is measured by combining the length of the jam with the duration of the congestion, reported in kilometre hours. One hundred kilometre hours, for example, equates to 100 kilometres of traffic jams lasting one hour. From August 2023 to July 2024, the average daily congestion severity was 897 kilometre hours per working day, meaning there was an average of 897 kilometres of traffic jams for one hour each workday—an all-time high.

This trend of increasing congestion has been ongoing for years. There was a peak in May 2018, followed by a slight decline and then a significant drop in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, by April 2021, congestion levels began to rise again, and by July 2023, they had surpassed previous records.

The most severe and longest traffic jams typically occur in the Antwerp and Brussels regions, while the Ghent area and other parts of Flanders experience significantly less congestion on major roads. Photo by nl:User:LimoWreck, Wikimedia commons.