A collection of self-propelled elongated particles is circulating in a circular track. Due to the presence of a bottleneck, the flow transits to a congested state for a sufficient number of particles, even if the whole track is not saturated. Both experiments and simulations are used to identify the transition toward congestion. An intermediate regime of coexistence is characterized by intermittency between a free flow state and a jammed state. The range of the coexistence region is found to depend explicitly on fluctuating quantities such as the distribution of the escape times from a jam and the headway time distribution between free particles. Optimization strategies, such as the "slower is faster" effect, are tested in experiments and simulations, and an increase in the traffic performances is reported.