Where in Germany does traffic jam the longest, and where are the most roadworks? These are questions you may have asked yourself for a long time, or maybe you’ve never asked them before. It doesn’t matter! We know the answers and we’ll tell you! You can find even more fun facts about the transport sector in Germany in this blogpost.

Traffic jam – when nothing is going right

In 2022, the German Automobile Association (ADAC) counted 474,000 traffic jams or gridlocked traffic on Germany’s autobahns over a total length of about 733,000 kilometers (equivalent to more than 18 circumnavigations of the globe). That meant 330,000 hours of waiting to continue, more than 900 hours per day. The worst was on Friday, September 30, before the long weekend for the national holiday “Day of German Unity,” with more than 2,250 hours of congestion. The longest traffic jam, over 44 kilometers, occurred on Saturday, July 23, on the A8 from Munich to Salzburg between Rosenheim and Bad Reichenhall on the border with Austria.

Typical: traffic jam on the A8. Photo: Jürgen Fälchle/Adobe Stock

Construction site Highway

There are currently around 1,000 roadworks on the German highway network – 552 of which were permanent roadworks at the start of the year. In 2022, 600 to 1,000 sites were under construction simultaneously on German highways every day – about half of them in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Fewer and fewer service stations

Whereas in 1969 there were 46,684 service stations in western Germany alone, today there are just under 14,000 in the whole of Germany. More than a third of these are owned by the three largest mineral oil companies. One LPG filling station with a workshop is Germany’s longest truck wash, at 36 meters. It is located in Duisburg.

Germany’s smallest gas station is in Knuffingen – er, Hamburg. Photo: Miniatur Wunderland

But where is Germany’s smallest gas station located? In Knuffingen! That’s a fictional location in Hamburg’s Miniatur Wunderland. The filling station was faithfully reproduced on a scale of 1:87 in around 300 hours of work. It is visited by 150 vehicles every day and displays the prices in real time of the real gas station that served as its model.

Underground

With its 7,916 meters, the Rennsteig Tunnel is the longest tunnel in Germany. It is part of the A71 motorway and passes under part of the Thuringian Forest between the Gräfenroda and Oberhof junctions. The Hamburg Elbe Tunnel in second place is not even half as long at 3,325 meters, but it is one of the longest underwater roads in the world.

Hero of the road

Andreas Schubert knew the Elbe Tunnel well from his tours to Sweden. He was Germany’s most famous asphalt cowboy. From 2012 until his death in 2020, he was accompanied by a documentary series on the DMAX television channel.

And what about you? Who is your hero of the road? Have you already broken records, or do you know an insider tip along the highway? Then tell us in a comment!