Skip to main content

London tops global congestion ranking, says report

The Inrix Traffic Scorecard 2015, which measures progress in improving urban mobility, reveals strong economic growth and record population levels resulting in London becoming the first city to surpass 100 hours wasted per driver in gridlock. The report analysed traffic congestion in more than 100 cities worldwide. London topped the list, with drivers wasting an average of 101 hours, or more than four days, in gridlock in 2015. Across the UK, drivers spent 30 hours on average in delays last year, consist
March 15, 2016 Read time: 2 mins
The 163 Inrix Traffic Scorecard 2015, which measures progress in improving urban mobility, reveals strong economic growth and record population levels resulting in London becoming the first city to surpass 100 hours wasted per driver in gridlock.

The report analysed traffic congestion in more than 100 cities worldwide. London topped the list, with drivers wasting an average of 101 hours, or more than four days, in gridlock in 2015. Across the UK, drivers spent 30 hours on average in delays last year, consistent with 2014, but the UK dropped to sixth in the European ranking as a result of Switzerland seeing a rise in traffic levels. Belgium remains Europe’s most gridlocked country, with drivers stuck in traffic for 44 hours on average.

Of the 13 European countries analysed, 70 per cent experienced a decrease in congestion in 2015. This can be attributed to a sluggish Europe-wide economy, with an average quarterly GDP growth rate of 0.3 per cent in the second half of last year, which remains below the pre-crisis peak of 2008. Belgium topped the list with drivers spending 44 hours in traffic congestion, followed by the Netherlands (39 hours) and Germany (38).

Although London topped the list of Europe’s most gridlocked cities, Stuttgart experienced the highest increase, reaching 73 average hours wasted in 2015, an increase of 14 per cent from 2014. Both Cologne (5.2 hours) and Antwerp (6.6 hours) experienced significant increases in delays.

Brussels, Europe’s most congested city in 2012 and 2013, experienced a significant drop in delays in 2015, achieving 70 hours wasted in traffic, a decline of more than four hours from 2014 and moving the city to fifth in the ranking.

At the global city level, London tops the list of gridlock-plagued cities, with 101 hours of delay, followed by Los Angeles (81 hours), Washington DC (75), San Francisco (75), Houston (74), New York (73), Stuttgart (73), Antwerp (71), Cologne (71) and Brussels (70).

Of the countries measured by the Inrix Traffic Scorecard, the US leads with the highest annual hours wasted in traffic – an average of nearly 50 hours in 2015 – outranking Belgium (44 hours), Netherlands (39), Germany (38), Luxembourg (33), Switzerland (30), UK (30) and France (28).

Related Content

  • February 21, 2017
    Moscow ‘most congested city in Europe’
    The latest Inrix Traffic Scorecard, which analyses and ranks the impact of traffic congestion in 1,064 cities across 38 countries worldwide, indicates that Moscow topped the list as the most congested in Europe, where drivers spent 91 hours in 2016 in traffic congestion at peak hours. Of the 628 European cities analysed, drivers in Moscow spent over 25% of their total drive time (peak and non-peak hours) in congestion. London (73 hours) is second in the list of Europe’s most congested cities, followed by Pa
  • August 26, 2015
    Washington, DC, tops list of gridlocked US cities
    The 2015 urban mobility scorecard for the US, published jointly by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute and Inrix, indicates that urban areas of all sizes are experiencing the challenges seen in the early 2000s and population, jobs and therefore congestion are increasing. The US economy has regained nearly all of the nine million jobs lost during the recession and the total congestion problem is larger than the pre-recession levels. Cities of all sizes are experiencing the challenges last seen before t
  • August 24, 2015
    London is Europe’s most congested city, says Inrix
    The Inrix National Traffic Scorecard Annual Report 2014, which analyses and compares the status of traffic congestion in countries and major metropolitan areas worldwide, reveals that congestion levels rose in over half (53%) of European cities. As economies start to recover from the recession of 2007-2013 and employment levels begin to rise, congestion is increasing. Congestion in European cities decreased in the first and second quarters of 2014 when compared with the previous year, by four per cent pe
  • February 7, 2018
    Inrix ranks U.S. most congested developed country in the world
    The U.S. is the most congested developed country in the world, with drivers spending an average of 41 hours a year in traffic during peak hours, costing them nearly $305bn (£220bn) in 2017, an average of $1,445 (£1,042) per driver. The findings come from Inrix’s annual Global Traffic Scorecard, which analysed 1,360 cities across 38 countries. Additionally, the study revealed that the U.S. had three of the top five most congested cities globally, costing an economic drain upwards of $2.5bn (£1.8bn). Los