A number of ways are being looked at to reduce congestion

The M62 between the junctions with the M621 to Leeds and M606 to Bradford is now the fourth most congested, traffic monitoring company Trafficmaster says.

And the M1 near Sheffield in South Yorkshire is in sixth place.

Five years ago neither appeared in the top 10 and two years ago both roads were near the bottom of the list.

Hard shoulder

The Highways Agency is looking at a number of ways of reducing hold-ups on the busy Yorkshire motorways.

These include resurfacing the hard shoulder and using it as an overspill lane at peak times.

But the emergency services are not keen as they would have no quick route to accidents.

Another option, which might be used in conjunction with resurfacing the hard shoulder, is putting traffic lights on entry slip roads.

When the motorway is full, the lights would be set to red and would only turn to green when traffic levels went down.