Melbourne’s most frustrating commutes revealed

Think your commute is the worst in the city? A new frustration index has pinpointed our real nightmare trips. From Craigieburn to Berwick, these are the routes driving Melbourne drivers up the wall.

Drivers in Melbourne’s north are the most likely to be fed up with their trip into work as new research reveals the most frustrating city commutes by car across the metropolitan area.

Years of data on Melbourne’s road network - including travel times, traffic levels, road conditions and crash statistics - has been compiled into a frustration index, determining which routes into the CBD are most likely to drive people up the wall.

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Commutes through the inner-north - including driving along High St and Brunswick St - ranked the worst, followed closely by routes from Narre Warren, Craigieburn, Vermont South and Berwick.

The data was collected by the National Transport Performance Centre, a new organisation jointly funded by state and federal governments.

Australian Road Research Board chief executive Michael Caltabiano said the results would come as a surprise to many motorists.

“You ask people where they reckon the maximum frustration will be and everybody will say the Monash,” he said.

“But that’s not true. It’s actually the north to south route coming into the city.

“That information needs to inform our policymakers about where the investment needs to be. Ultimately, we serve the community and frustrated drivers become dangerous drivers.”

 

In the southeast, driving from Narre Warren through the Princes Highway and Berwick, through Lower Dandenong Rd, ranked highly for congestion, rough roads and heavy delays.

But drivers were most likely to be enraged by highly congested and older corridors in the north such as the Greensborough Bypass, Sydney Rd and High St.

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Mr Caltabiano said the centre now had traffic speed, volume and safety data for every single road in the country and would use it to find new solutions to traffic snarls.

“Our aim is take 35 minutes off people’s journeys,” he said.

“The first task is to provide for each of the capital cities in Australia, and the major regional cities an indication of what problem they’re really trying to solve.”

“This new index will shine a new light on the things that are important to the motoring public and should be part of the decision-making process when investing in new infrastructure solutions.”

It is hoped the frustration index can be used by authorities to target infrastructure funding more effectively.

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