M60 Anticlockwise Traffic

Live traffic news for the anticlockwise carriageway of the M60 — the direction in which the junction numbers count down. Current anticlockwise incidents and roadworks are below, then a look at the quieter half of the ring.

A word on the figures before we start

Every traffic count on this page comes from the Department for Transport and covers both carriageways added together. The DfT records the M60 by compass point, not by clockwise and anticlockwise, so there is no published anticlockwise-only count for us to quote. Halving a combined figure would look precise and mean nothing, so we have not done it. What is anticlockwise-specific on this page is the live traffic news at the top, which is filtered to this carriageway.

The quieter half of the ring

Most of the M60’s reputation comes from its north-western side. The southern and eastern arc that anticlockwise traffic spends much of its time on is a different road altogether — lighter, and carrying far less freight.

The M56 interchange is the striking one. At 2.7% lorries it is the least freight-heavy point measured anywhere on the M60 apart from the short Junction 2 spur — which is what a motorway junction feeding an airport looks like in the data rather than one feeding a distribution belt.

Coming out of the freight arc

Anticlockwise drivers meet the M60’s heavy-goods section in reverse. Where a clockwise journey drives into the run between Junctions 12 and 18, anticlockwise traffic is coming down out of it — from Junction 18 towards 17, 16, 15 and on to 12, with the lorry share falling away from around 11% back to under 6% within a few miles.

The heaviest point on that descent is Junction 15 to 14, where one vehicle in eight is a lorry. It is also the single largest van route on the motorway, at 42,468 light goods vehicles a day.

Anticlockwise means the numbers count down

The M60’s junctions are numbered 1 to 27 around the ring, and anticlockwise is the direction in which those numbers fall. From Junction 20 the next one you reach is 19, then 18. At the bottom of the count the sequence wraps: after Junction 1 comes Junction 27, and the count continues down from there.

It is worth a glance at the next sign if you are unsure which carriageway you are on. Numbers falling means anticlockwise and this page. Numbers rising means you want M60 clockwise traffic instead.

For reference, the DfT measures this motorway at 40 count points, which reduce to 35 distinct stretches once the sections counted twice at local authority boundaries are set aside — an average of 126,393 vehicles a day across them.

Traffic counts: Department for Transport road traffic statistics, 2025, annual average daily flow, both directions combined. Live incidents: Powered by National Highways’ Transport Data Feeds.