💨Congestion Watch 👀: The Data is in! 🤓
The first month’s data on Oxford’s Temporary Congestion Charge is in.
See lots of numbers? We see lots of numbers too 😵💫. So, we’ve done the hard work for you, trawled through the data, translated it to plain-speak, pulled out some early headlines. We finish with OLS micro-hot-take take on what they might mean – with cautious optimism and the caveat that it’s only been a month.
Firstly, here’s what the data is showing us far;
The Good Bits.
🚙 Inside the ring road, traffic is generally down – sometimes sharply. Key streets like Hythe Bridge Street (-33%), St Clements (-22%) and Cowley Road (-8%) are all seeing fewer cars.
🚌 Buses are moving more freely on key routes.
On Abingdon Road, St Clements and Headington Road, peak-time bus journeys are noticeably quicker than last year.
🚶♀️ More people are spending time in the city and local centres.
City-centre visitor footfall is up 22%, St Clements & Cowley Road up 21%, and the Covered Market up 30% compared with last November. Of course, there may be other contributing factors but this will no doubt allay fears by some businesses that the Congestion Charge will disincentivise people from coming in - particuarly bearing in mind that the data is comparing this November with November 2025. This feels like a like Christmas win for the retailers and restaurateurs that have been wringing their hands over what this might mean for sales 🎄. And perhaps signal supporting data in Oxford for what we see elsewhere - that reducing cars actually increases footfall.
🅿️ Greater uptake of the Park & Ride
Especially Redbridge. Entries are up at all sites, with Redbridge up 27% and several car parks hitting higher occupancy across the week.
🎫 Permits are being widely used to protect essential trips.
Over 8,000 Blue Badge permits and more than 3,500 community health and care worker permits have been issued, alongside tens of thousands of day passes for Oxford and Oxfordshire residents.
Of course, it’s not all rosy…
🚧 Some roads outside the inner core are seeing more traffic and slower journeys. Garsington Road traffic is up 31%, and parts of the ring road and A40/A34 are seeing higher peak-time journey times in at least one direction.
🏙️ Impacts on local centres are uneven. While the city centre and several districts are up, Summertown’s visitor footfall is down 35% on last November, and Oxford High Street (east) is also down 8%. Although, Summertown feels a bit like an anomaly - anything else going here do we think?
🚲 We’re still flying blind on cycling and spending. Cycle counts for November 2025 aren’t yet available, and data on consumer spending won’t land until January – so we can’t yet see how local shops and riders are really being affected.
💨 Air Pollution Data OLS campaigned in support of the congestion charge on a board platform of spatial justice, health and wellbeing. It would great to see air pollution data integrated into the reporting.
Here’s where it get’s really interesting…👇🏽
Curious about who’s driving and who’s paying? Looking at permits and payments adds another layer. By the end of November, around 28,000 Oxford residents had applied for day passes for their cars. Against roughly 45,000 cars in the city, that’s just under two-thirds of the fleet, leaving around 4 in 10 cars without a pass. This means, not every car-owning household is rushing to lock in their ability to drive into the charging zone – some rarely drive into the centre, some may be changing habits, some just haven’t bothered (and course some may have also been sunk by the life admin but let’s not go there).
On the flip side, the charge raised about £292k in one month – roughly 58,000 paid charge days at £5 a time. We don’t know exactly how many of those are repeat journeys or where every driver lives, but it strongly suggests a significant share of charged trips are coming from outside the city, not just local residents.
It’s also worth zooming out from vehicles to people. We know there were around 58,000 paid charge days in November, on top of trips made under permits and day passes. Even if you assume tens of thousands of car trips into the centre, with more than one person in many of these cars, that still pales beside something like a million or more bus journeys across Oxford in a typical month.
Whichever way you slice it, buses are carrying many times more people than cars, which underlines why keeping them moving matters.
The OLS Take…
As we said earlier - Oxfordshire Liveable Streets campaigned in favour of the Temporary Congestion Charge on a broad platform of spatial justice, equity, and health and wellbeing – and this first snapshot broadly supports the case that it’s starting to do what it said on the tin. We’re seeing freer, more reliable movement into the city – especially by bus – which benefits the majority of people travelling into Oxford, including many within Oxford who don’t have access to a car. We’re also seeing clear use of exemptions and permits by those who need them most – from Blue Badge holders to carers and community health workers – which is exactly the kind of protection people were seeking.
At the same time, early signs of displacement and uneven impacts between different parts of the city are clear signals on where there might need to be adjustment: to target investment in buses, walking and cycling where people are losing out, and to make sure revenue is used to lower barriers to sustainable travel, not raise them - including ensuring bus users inside the city aren’t unwittingly incentivised to use their cars because it’s >coughs< cheaper.
We’d really like to see fuller data for walking, cycling and air pollution, so we can properly understand who is breathing cleaner air – and who isn’t yet.
And we have a lot more we could say about a fairer distribution of the money raised (see our last Congestion Charge blog) but we’ll save that for January. For now, without draping tinsel all over it, it’s safe to say that things are heading in the right direction for reducing congestion and making road space work harder for those who rely on shared, affordable, low-carbon transport. This is a live trial, not the final word, so we’ll be watching closely and pushing for adjustments as fresh data comes in.
And sending a little glass of figurative festive cheer for all those behind the scenes making this happen and pulling the data together. Cheers to breathing a little easier over Christmas 🍻.