Mexico City Takes Crown of

TomTom Traffic Index 2016 – The Results Are In!
Global Traffic Congestion at All Time High^* – But Shocking Differences Between Continents

Amsterdam, 22nd March 2016
TomTom (TOM2) today released the results of the TomTom Traffic Index 2016, the annual report detailing the cities around the world with the most traffic congestion. The big news this year is that Istanbul has been knocked off the top spot by Mexico City.

Drivers in the Mexican capital can expect to spend an average of 59% extra travel time stuck in traffic at any time during the day, and up to 103% in the evening peak periods when compared to a free flowing, or uncongested, situation. This adds up to 219^** hours of extra travel time per year.

Completing the top five most congested cities in the world are Bangkok (57%), Istanbul (50%), Rio de Janeiro (47%), and Moscow (44%), making up the top five most congested cities in the world.

Using data from 2015, the TomTom Traffic Index analyses the traffic congestion 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.

Congestion Up, Globally

Looking at TomTom’s historical data, it’s clear that traffic congestion is up by 13% globally since 2008. But there are shocking differences between continents. While North America’s traffic congestion has increased by 17%, Europe has only increased by 2%. This could be driven by economic growth in North America, and Economic depression in the rest of Europe.

Worryingly for businesses there is a direct correlation between a reduction in traffic and economic growth. Commenting in his analysis of the report, Wendell Cox, principal of Demographia, said: There is considerable economic research indicating that the more fluid the traffic in an urban area, the greater its likely economic growth. For example, an urban area in which residents can reach 80% of the jobs in 30 minutes is likely to perform better economically than if only 70% or 60% of the jobs can be reached in that time.

Taco van der Leij, VP Marketing at TomTom Telematics, said: Businesses with employees on the road in congested cities could clearly benefit from smart methods to cope with the effect of traffic. Customers using our WEBFLEET fleet management solution are already taking a first step towards this with access to a wide range of tools to help make better decisions for their fleets. Through more intelligent routing and job scheduling, telematics can optimize traffic flow, meaning vehicles spend less time on the road, and by being able to tap into TomTom’s world class Traffic Services they are able to further reduce travel times.

Business owners can find out more about the TomTom Traffic Index, and discover where their home city ranks at www.tomtom.com/trafficindex. 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.

Ranking of the most congested cities Globally in 2015 (Overall daily congestion level – extra travel time – population over 800,000):

Ranking of the most congested cities in Europe in 2015 (Overall daily congestion level – extra travel time – population over 800,000):

Ranking of the most congested cities in North America in 2015 (Overall daily congestion level – extra travel time – population over 800,000):

^* Since 2008 when TomTom’s records started
^** Extra travel time during peak hours compared to an hour of driving during free flow conditions, multiplied by 230 working days per year