Ring road traffic this past July saw an unexpected decrease. The decrease measured at 0.1% and is entirely thanks to reduced traffic in the capital region. The Commerce Day weekend (excepting Monday, for accurate comparison) was only this year’s traffic-heaviest weekend in Eastern Iceland. Despite difficulties in comparison it is expected that other weekends over the summer are gaining momentum as traffic-heavy travel weekends. It is predicted that traffic will see a considerably lower increase than average this year.
Traffic volume comparison between July 2024 and 2025.
Traffic numbers for the month of July turned out lower than expected, with a 0.1% decrease in traffic volume measured in comparison to the same month last year. The biggest reason for this decrease is a 5.8% decrease in traffic measured in and around the capital region, which was ultimately the only region in the country that produced a decrease. Traffic numbers increased in all other regions, with the greatest increase occurring in West Iceland (6.4%).
For individual measurement sites, traffic saw the greatest increase on Mýrdalssandur (11.5%) and the greatest decrease was around the measurement site on Geitháls (-8.8%).
Traffic since the New Year
With the passing of the densest month of the year, traffic-wise, total 2025 traffic measurements show a 1.2% increase in comparison to the same time last year. All regions, outside of the capital region and its surroundings, show increases. The greatest increase has been measured in Northern Iceland (7.3%) but a 1.2% decrease is measured in and around the capital region.
Traffic by weekdays
Since the beginning of the year, the weekday with the heaviest traffic volume is, on average, Friday, and the day with the lightest traffic volume is Saturday.
The greatest increase in traffic has been measured on Mondays, but Thursday numbers have mostly stayed unchanged.
Looking towards end-of-year 2025
Following a decrease in July traffic, the traffic forecast for the year has been updated accordingly. The predicted forecast now shows a 1.5% increase in traffic volume in comparison to last year. The average traffic volume increase between 2005-2024 is 3.2%, and so the increase this year heavily underperforms the average traffic volume increase of the past decades.
Summer weekend traffic overview
The below table shows the summer weekends with the heaviest traffic up until now (June through August, Friday – Sunday), including the newly concluded Commerce Day weekend (August 1st-3rd):
Of this summer’s weekends, as of August 3rd, the Commerce Day weekend has the lowest traffic volume for Friday through Sunday, which is the criteria used for all weekend measurements.
Source: Vegagerdin.is
