Experts Reveal the UK’s Most Driver-Friendly Cities

Coventry has won the race for being the most driver-friendly city in the UK – according to research by cinch.

cinch, the leading online car marketplace, sifted through the most populated 25 cities in the UK to identify those offering the most favourable driving experiences to British motorists.

Coventry edges out Brighton & Hove and Plymouth on the final leaderboard, which measures some of the key aspects that are driver-friendly – such as fuel prices, cost of parking and traffic congestion.

London finished bottom of the leaderboard, with Cardiff and Edinburgh also faring poorly.

cinch’s research covered the average cost of parking in the city centre, the average price of petrol, the number of available electric vehicle public charging points, the average number of hours lost in traffic congestion per driver and the amount of positive tweets related to driving in the city.

UK’s Most Driver-Friendly Cities:

1. Coventry

2. Brighton & Hove

3. Plymouth

4. Kingston upon Hull (Hull)

5. Norwich

6. Manchester

7. Portsmouth

8. Newcastle upon Tyne

9. Bradford

10. Sheffield

11. Derby

12. Wolverhampton

13. Leicester

14. Nottingham

15. Birmingham

16. Liverpool

17. Stoke-on-Trent

18. Southampton

19. Leeds

20. Glasgow

21. Bristol

22. Belfast

23. Edinburgh

24. Cardiff

25. London

Standout cities

Sam Sheehan, motoring editor at cinch, said: “The aim of our research was to find the standout cities in the UK that provide optimal conditions for car drivers.

“Whether you have an Audi A1 or a BMW i8, the top-ranking cities offer an appealing combination of factors that can make drivers’ lives more comfortable and convenient as they hit the road.

“For example, Coventry, our best-scoring entry overall, has the UK’s highest number of EV public charging points in relation to its population, with an average of 318 public chargers per 100,000 people.

“At the other end of scale, Stoke-on-Trent (20 chargers per 100,000 people) and Wolverhampton (21) are playing catch-up when it comes to public charging.

“Coventry is joint-second with Bradford as the city with the cheapest parking-space prices within a 10-minute walk from the centre.

“For a one-hour stay between 12pm and 1pm on a Monday, you can expect to pay £1.43 on average in Coventry. If you were in Wolverhampton, the top-ranking city for this metric, it would cost you £1.29 to park your car in town.

“London, on the other hand, will set you back a whopping £9.25 per hour per hour.”

Traffic congestion to Twitter love

Don’t fancy sitting in traffic? Head north of the border to Glasgow, where drivers only spend 31 hours per year on congested roads during peak commuter periods. On the flip side, London’s notoriously busy streets mean an average of 156 hours per person per year are spent sitting in traffic on the commute.

With petrol prices high on the agenda, drivers in cities such as Leicester (£1.48 per litre), Plymouth (£1.48) and Brighton & Hove (£1.36) are getting a relatively good deal when it comes to refuelling at the pumps.

Those filling up in the major cities of London (£1.66 per litre), Glasgow (£1.65) and Manchester (£1.60) are finding their petrol money doesn’t stretch quite as far.

Manchester, ranked sixth on the overall leaderboard, boasted the highest share of positive tweets about driving (42%), while only 2% of tweets about being on the road in Southampton were positive.

Plymouth, the third city on the overall leaderboard, performed well across most metrics. With a range of services and amenities that cater well to the needs of its motorists, the Devon city is one of the locations receiving the most positive driving-related posts on Twitter.

Top 5 cities: cheapest city-centre public parking

1. Wolverhampton (£1.29 per hour)

2. = Bradford (£1.43)
= Coventry (£1.43

3. Portsmouth (£1.48)

4. Southampton (£1.79)

Top 5 cities: most public EV charging points per 100,000 people

1. Coventry (318)

2. Brighton & Hove (147)

3. London (145)

4. Nottingham (74)

5. Plymouth (60)

Top 5 cities: cheapest litre of petrol

1. Brighton & Hove (£1.36)

2. = Plymouth (£1.48)
= Stoke-on-Trent (£1.48)
= Leicester (£1.48)
= Cardiff (£1.48)

Top 5 cities: fewest hours stuck in traffic per year per driver during peak commuter periods

1. Glasgow (31)

2. Portsmouth (34)

3. Newcastle upon Tyne (40)

4. Coventry (41)

5. Norwich (46)

Top 5 cities: highest percentage of positive tweets about driving

1. Manchester (42%)

2. Kingston upon Hull (34%)

3. Brighton & Hove (31%)

4. Plymouth (29%)

5. Stoke-on-Trent (26%)

To find out more about cinch, visit https://www.cinch.co.uk/