Traffic chaos on the decline in Dublin

TRAFFIC chaos is declining in Dublin, according to a survey of Europe's most congested cities.

The capital now ranks as Europe's 24th most gridlocked city in -- an astonishing 9.7pc drop on last year.

Brussels remains the continent's most frustrating traffic hotspot and was found to be getting worse, according to the list compiled by GPS firm Tom Tom.

It may not always seem like it but for Ireland, overall, it is good news, with traffic jams easing across the country.

The fall in congestion could be put down to a number of factors, including an improvement in traffic infrastructure as well as the rise in unemployment.

Paul Heffernan, of Dublin City Council, told the Herald that they "would have seen a drop in vehicle volumes, but we would have also seen that the composition of the vehicles has also changed".

"There are probably around the same volumes of cars but the numbers of heavy goods vehicles and in particular construction has dropped very dramatically."

In the North, Belfast remains in 12th position, despite a fall in congestion by 2pc.

Meanwhile in the UK, London has seen a reduction in cars on the street, though is still climbing in the rankings.

Manchester and Edinburgh also feature in the top 10, which marks Britain as the most congested country in Europe.

Despite the improvements, Dublin still has work to do to beat Cologne, in Germany, which is bottom of the list of 50 with just 18.9pc of its roads in gridlock.

The fall in Ireland is echoed around Europe, with six of the continent's most congested cities having significantly reduced traffic last year, including Wroclaw in Poland and Toulouse in France, though they remain in the top five.

The data seems to indicate that along with Ireland, Switzerland, Norway, Hungry and the Czech Republic have the most stress-free roads.

The top five congested cities were Brussels, Warsaw, London, Wroclaw and Toulouse.

Cities were ranked according to how fast cars travelled on street networks in major cities.