The 10 most congested cities in the world

Moscow has emerged the world’s worst city for gridlock and congestion in a new traffic report which found that in general, the worst places to be a driver are European and Latin American cities.

In the 2018 Global Traffic Scorecard produced by traffic analytics company INRIX, Moscow emerged the world’s most congested city, followed by Istanbul, Bogota, Mexico City and Sao Paulo.

Overall, the scorecard ranked congestion and mobility trends in more than 200 cities across 38 countries.

For the report, congestion is characterised as a question of supply and demand: the demand for road space exceeding supply.

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For the 2018 edition, analysts considered factors like hours lost in congestion; year-over-year change; the time it takes to travel one mile into a central business district during peak hours; and the speed at which a driver can expect to travel one mile into the same area, during the same time.

Other considerations included a city’s population, network density and public transportation.

Overall, the report found that drivers in Europe and Latin America have it the worst, for different reasons.

Breakneck rates of urbanisation, high levels of informal settlements, “unforgiving topographies” and financial volatility are blamed for making mobility in Latin American cities particularly challenging, report authors note.

When it comes to hours lost in congestion, eight of the top 10 cities globally are European, namely because of age. Roads in cities like Rome, Paris, London and Milan can be traced back to the Roman period, the report notes. In essence, that means that cars are driving into neighborhoods which were designed for horses and walking.

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Here are the top 10 most congested cities in the world:

1. Moscow
2. Istanbul
3. Bogota
4. Mexico City
5. Sao Paulo
6. London
7. Rio de Janeiro
8. Boston
9. Saint Petersburg
10. Rome

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