The Midlands has been identified as having some of the quickest roads in the UK.

The M6 Toll, the M45, the M69 and the M40 are in the top five of quickest routes by average traffic flow speeds, according to Trafficmaster.

It found that the fastest road in Britain is the A74 to Gretna, while the slowest is the A4002 in Harlesden, north London. Other slow routes are the A601(M) and A818.

Trafficmaster was able to identify the top five quickest routes in the UK by their real average traffic flow speeds in a 24 hour period, using data collected by its Smartnav navigation system and nationwide traffic sensor network.

A spokesman said: “When you need to get from A to B, the key is knowing which roads to use, and when, for the quickest journey.

“Obviously, you can’t tell this by looking at a map and most sat-nav systems base their route calculations only on speed limits. But now we can get smarter, identifying the best routes by their real speeds and matching this with our congestion data, so we have proper local knowledge for the roads in your area, on top of being able to tell you where the jams are.”