M1 Maps and Junctions
The M1 runs 193 miles from London to Leeds through 48 junctions, and the Department for Transport measures it at 97 separate points. These pages help you find the part of it you actually drive.
Maps of the M1
The busiest junctions on the M1
Each of these pages carries the official traffic counts for that stretch alongside the traffic news affecting it:
- M1 Junction 42 to Junction 43 (Lofthouse / Leeds) — 159,683 vehicles a day
- M1 Junction 7 to Junction 8 (St Albans / Hemel Hempstead) — 158,937 vehicles a day
- M1 Junction 21 to Junction 21A (Leicester / M69) — 157,403 vehicles a day
- M1 Junction 31 to Junction 32 (Aston / Thurcroft) — 155,303 vehicles a day
- M1 Junction 23A to Junction 24 (East Midlands Airport) — 131,396 vehicles a day
- M1 Junction 16 to Junction 17 (Northampton / Watford Gap) — 120,092 vehicles a day
Why these six
Four of them are among the six busiest measured stretches of the M1. The other two were chosen because they are different rather than simply big: junctions 16 to 17 carries a higher proportion of lorries than anywhere else on the motorway, and junctions 23A to 24 runs alongside the UK’s busiest dedicated air-freight airport. Between them they cover the London end, Northamptonshire, Leicestershire, the East Midlands, South Yorkshire and Leeds.
For the whole motorway, see how busy the M1 is junction by junction and where the lorries are.
Traffic figures on this page are Department for Transport road traffic statistics, annual average daily flow for 2025, both directions combined. Annual average daily flow counts how many vehicles use a stretch across the year. It does not measure how fast they travel, so the busiest stretch is not automatically the slowest.