Global Traffic Index: UAE main cities compare well
DUBAI 18 June 2019: Mumbai has taken the top spot this year with drivers in the Indian city expecting to spend an average of 65% extra travel time stuck in traffic.
Next in the global rankings are Colombian capital, Bogota (63%), Lima in Peru (58%), New Delhi in India (58%) and Russian Capital, Moscow (56%), making up the top five most congested cities in the world.
TomTom Traffic Index details the traffic situation in 403 cities in 56 countries around the world.
Abu Dhabi and Dubai
The two main UAE cities have been included in the survey. Abu Dhabi ranks 396 with a congestion level of 11% extra travel time stuck in traffic (unchanged vs. 2017). Dubai ranks 202 with a congestion level of 23% (with a positive trend -4% vs. 2017).
Abu Dhabi:
- Congestion level highways: 4% extra travel time stuck in traffic and non-highways: 14%.
- Congestion level morning travel peak: 19% and evening travel peak: 18%
Dubai:
- Congestion level highways: 18% and non-highways: 28%.
- Congestion level morning travel peak: 34% and evening travel peak: 48%
“Traffic congestion is of key importance for road safety, because when motorists get caught in congestions, we see a lot of impolite and dangerous behavior. From our own studies we observe, that UAE’s motorists give a lot of credit to the UAE authorities for continuously improving the road infrastructure. Traffic congestion adds costs to economies via lost working hours, it adds inconvenience to drivers via extra travel time and it should be avoided from a road safety perspective. It is great to see the 2 main UAE cities to fare pretty well on a global level,” said Thomas Edelmann, Managing Director of RoadSafetyUAE
TomTom is a Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) partner of RoadSafetyUAE.
Congestion Rising
Traffic congestion has increased globally during the last decade, and nearly 75% of the cities TomTom includes in the new Traffic Index report had increased or stable congestion levels between 2017 and 2018, with only 90 cities showing measurable decreases.
Ralf-Peter Schäfer, TomTom’s VP of Traffic information, said: “Globally, traffic congestion is rising. And that’s both good, and bad, news. It’s good because it indicates a strong global economy, but the flip side is drivers wasting time sitting in traffic, not to mention the huge environmental impact.”
