High fuel prices and working from home have not kept people out of their cars, with the number of traffic jams reaching a record high in the first nine months of this year, according to new figures from motoring organisation ANWB.

Traffic congestion has risen 19% since the last of the coronavirus restrictions were lifted in March 2022, the ANWB said on Tuesday.

“It would appear that nothing has helped and we have forgotten about working from home,” expert Arnoud Broekhuis told the Telegraaf. “High petrol prices don’t seem to have any effect either because we are still using our cars en masse.”

The number of jams has increased Monday to Friday – with congestion up 12% during the morning rush hour and 20% during the day and early evening.

However, on Friday, which was always the quietest day of the week, congestion has gone down by 14%. “You can’t really talk about rush hour anymore,” Broekhuis said.

Congestion has increased particularly in Noord Brabant, which has now almost overtaken Zuid-Holland as the most traffic-congested province. Brabant has many two-lane motorways which means the situation will only worsen in the years to come, he said.

The morning traffic jam hot spot is the A12 from the German border to Arnhem, followed by the A25 between Breda and Utrecht. That is also number one on the evening rush hour list, followed by the A4 from The Hague to Amsterdam.