Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential impact of levels of car use on (a) congestion and (b) road noise.

The Department periodically publishes the national road traffic projections. The most recent being the National Road Traffic Projections 2022. This includes a measure of congestion expressed as lost time per mile, per vehicle in seconds. This is split by vehicle type, road type and region. While no specific assessment on levels of car use and road noise has been undertaken, the Government’s methods for the Calculation of Road Traffic Noise (CRTN), however, provides a standardised approach to calculate noise impacts from existing or proposed road networks to assess and manage the noise impacts on nearby communities.