Which city in SA has the most traffic congestion?

©Sergiy Serdyuk via 123RF

Drivers in Cape Town can expect to spend 30% extra travel time stuck in traffic anytime of the day, and up to 64%, on a Friday between 4pm and 5pm peak periods versus a free flow, or uncongested, situation - adding up to 152 hours of extra travel time per year. However, it's positive news in Pretoria and Durban where traffic congestion is easing.

Next in the rankings are Johannesburg (27%), East London (25%) and Bloemfontein (16%) making up the top five most congested cities in South Africa.

Using data from 2015, the TomTom Traffic Index looks at the traffic congestion situation in 295 cities in 38 countries on six continents – from Rome to Rio, Singapore to San Francisco. TomTom works with 14 trillion data points that have been accumulated over eight years. This is the fifth year of the TomTom Traffic Index. This year we have done something different with the TomTom Traffic Index, by giving cities the right to reply. This is very exciting for us here in South Africa, since Cape Town and Johannesburg have both been selected as profile cities.

What has been noted, albeit that Cape Town’s traffic congestion remains on a decline, cities such as Pretoria and Bloemfontein are showing eased traffic congestion levels. (Important to Note, traffic congestion levels are measure against travel times on the same rout during a non-congested period e.g. 12pm – 1am).

Congestion up, globally

Looking at TomTom’s historical data, it’s clear that traffic congestion is up by 13% globally since 2008. But, interestingly, there are shocking differences between continents. While North America’s traffic congestion has increased by 17%, Europe as has only increased by 2%. It could be suggested that this points to economic growth in North America, and Economic depression in the rest of Europe. This European figure could be heavily influenced by Southern European countries such as Italy (-7%) and Spain (-13%) where there has been a marked drop in traffic congestion in the past eight years.

Ralf-Peter Schaefer, VP TomTom Traffic, said: “The TomTom Traffic Index is released every year to help drivers, cities and transport planners to understand traffic congestion trends but, most importantly, how to improve congestion globally. We really want everybody to think about how they can lower the amount of time they waste in traffic every day – and to realise that we all need to play a part. If even just five per cent of us changed our travel plans, we’d improve travel times on our major highways by up to thirty per cent. Collectively, we can all work together to beat traffic congestion.”

People can find out more and discover where their home city ranks on the TomTom Traffic Index. There’s also helpful advice on beating traffic congestion, as well as independent analysis. And, for the first time, a selection of ‘Profile Cities’ provide insight into what they are doing to improve mobility.

Overall ranking of most congested cities in South Africa in 2015 (Overall daily congestion level – extra travel time):