The worst delays are on the M25 at the Dartford crossing

The worst stretch of road is the M25 between Reigate in Surrey and the Dartford Thames river crossing in Kent.

Worst in the north is the M60 around Manchester and in the Midlands the M42 around Birmingham.

The target is to speed up the slowest journeys, where drivers are held up for an average 3.5 minutes every 10 miles.

Stranded vehicles

Transport minister and Kent MP, Steve Ladyman, said the government was spending �1.9bn on getting the roads moving, including a "massive investment" in road building.

"We are committed to completing the widening of the M25 to four lanes and the M2 and A2 in Kent," he said.

The Department for Transport (DfT) said that by summer 2007, 1,500 civilian "jam-busting" traffic officers would be employed by the Highways Agency to clear accident scenes and stranded vehicles.

An active traffic management scheme was already operating on the M42.

The traffic officer patrols are already being used on some motorways

There would be better control of access to motorways on the M6, M60 and M62 from this spring and trial car pool lanes were planned for the M1 from 2008.

"We are setting ourselves a target to look at the slowest 10% of journeys and to focus on making sure journeys are more reliable," said Mr Ladyman.

"What annoys motorists more than anything is not being able to judge how long a particular journey is going to take."

He denied the government had given up trying to reduce traffic.

"We are investing heavily in public transport and looking at road pricing in the future where we will encourage people to travel at different times of the day and use different forms of transport," he said.

"But we do need to recognise that we have 34m vehicles in this country and we have to try and deal with that."

Road tolls

The DfT said it expected the first road pricing schemes to be in place within five years.

Geoff Dossetter, from the Road Transport Association, said it was in favour of road tolls.

"If it helps loosen up congestion we will welcome it," he said.

"The plain fact is that we do not have enough road space and it is going to have to be rationed."