Commuters around the world spend the equivalent of eight working days a year stuck in traffic.
This is according to navigation company TomTom, which released the sixth edition of its Traffic Index yesterday.
It revealed that South Africa’s most congested roads were in Joburg, where motorists spent three-and-a-half days in traffic a year.
The Traffic Index claims to be the world’s most accurate barometer of congestion in 169 cities. It compares travel times during non-congested hours (free flow) with peak hours. The index takes into account local roads and highways.
The data showed that for every hour spent driving in peak traffic, there was a 26-minute delay. This added up to 69 hours a year for road users who spent half an hour commuting on weekdays.
Based on comparisons, the report named the top 10 most congested cities, ranked by overall congestion level, in the second quarter of this year: Moscow, Istanbul, Rio de Janeiro, Warsaw, Palermo, Marseille, São Paulo, Rome, Paris and Stockholm.
In South Africa, Cape Town was in second place, Pretoria in fourth and Durban in sixth. Durban was also found to have had the country’s biggest increase in traffic congestion.
South African cities are looking to public transport improvements – including rail and bus rapid transport systems – as a sustainable solution to congestion. -Pretoria News