23 Aug 17
News

Mexico's capital is world's most congested city

You think traffic in your city is bad? It could be worse. Unless you're a commuter in Bucharest – the city with the slowest traffic in Europe. Only four cities on other continents do worse; Mexico City (pictured) is the place with the planet's most congested traffic.

Mapping and navigation services provider TomTom has ranked 189 cities worldwide for the state of their congestion problem. Using data collected over nine years up to 2016, the company rated each city for the extra time it takes to get from A to B compared to a free-flow situation.

Bucharest, to use that example, scores 50%. This means that it typically takes 90 minutes to get somewhere, whereas it would only take an hour in a free-flow situation. TomTom data shows the situation got 7% worse compared to the previous year; and that extra time needed to reach a destination increases by 90% during morning rush hour, and 98% in the evening peak.

Below are the 10 worst cities for the three major continents (# indicates global ranking; last two figures indicate traffic time increase during morning and evening peaks):

 

AMERICAS

#1   Mexico City, Mexico        66% (+7%)    96% 101%

#8   Rio de Janeiro, Brazil      47% (0%)      63% 81%

#12 Los Angeles, USA           45% (+4%)    62% 84%

#17 Santiago, Chile                43% (n/a)      73% 88%

#19 Buenos Aires, Argentina  42% (n/a)      64% 68%

#28 Salvador, Brazil                40% (-3%)    63% 70%

#30 San Francisco, USA         39% (+3%)   55% 73%

#34 Vancouver, Canada          39% (+5%)   54% 72%

#43 Recife, Brazil                    37% (-6%)    60% 65%

#47 Fortaleza, Brazil               35% (+2%)   56% 57%

 

ASIA

#2   Bangkok, Thailand            61% (+4%)   91% 118%

#3   Jakarta, Indonesia            58% (n/a)      63% 95%

#4   Chongqing, China             52% (+14%)  90% 94%

#7   Chengdu, China                47% (+6%)    74% 79%

#9   Tainan, Taiwan                  46% (+10%)  51% 71%

#10 Beijing, China                    46% (+8%)    72% 84%

#11 Changsha, China               45% (+8%)    70% 82%

#14 Guangzhou, China            44% (+7%)     58% 85%

#15 Shenzhen, China               44% (+7%)     62% 84%

#16 Hangzhou, China               43% (+5%)     61% 64%

 

EUROPE

#5 Bucharest, Romania             50% (+7%)    90% 98%

#6 Istanbul, Turkey                    49% (-1%)     63% 91%

#13 Moscow, Russia                  44% (0%)      71% 94%

#21 Saint Petersburg, Russia    41% (+1%)    65% 90%

#25 London, UK                         40% (+2%)    64% 68%

#26 Marseille, France                40% (+2%)    62% 75%

#27 Rome, Italy                          40% (+2%)    74% 68%

#35 Paris, France                       38% (+2%)    68% 66%

#37 Brussels, Belgium                38% (+3%)    71% 77%

#39 Manchester, UK                   38% (+1%)    68% 79%

 

For the entire ranking, check this page at TomTom.

 

Image: Ralf Roletschek, GFDL 1.2

Authored by: Frank Jacobs