Global traffic congestion ranking has 3 Indian cities in top 10

NEW DELHI: The traffic congestion in four big Indian cities — Mumbai, Bengaluru, Delhi and Pune — is crawling back close to the pre-pandemic levels, particularly in the past six months since unlocking started in phases, according to a report by a global location technology specialist. Mumbai ranked second in the world, Bengaluru sixth, Delhi eighth and Pune at number 16 among 416 cities across 56 countries on traffic congestion level parameters.
Moscow recorded the maximum congestion across the globe in 2020.
The presence of the three Indian cities in the top 10 of the TomTom Traffic Index is also being seen as an indication of a quicker revival of economic activities, while at the same time a greater preference by city dwellers to use personal vehicles over public transport. In 2019, Bengaluru topped the list among all the cities across the globe while Mumbai, Pune and Delhi came 4th, 5th and 8th, respectively.
The tenth edition of the global traffic index released on Wednesday said the overall congestion level in Mumbai was 53%, which was 12% less than that of 2019. Bengaluru saw a 20% drop in traffic congestion even as New Delhi saw a barely 9% reduction in congestion during the pandemic-hit year compared to the previous year. Pune recorded a 17% dip in traffic congestion last year compared to 2019.
Congestion level percentage is the extra travel time a driver experiences when compared to an uncongested situation.

The road traffic trend shows that there was “zero” congestion on Mumbai roads in April soon after the nationwide strict lockdown was imposed. The traffic on Mumbai roads started increasing from June and has been going up steadily. “Going by the trend, it seems that economic activities in Mumbai have completely resumed,” said Parag Bedarkar, manager (enterprise sales) of TomTom.
In the case of Delhi, the congestion level in April was 6% and it saw a quick increase in road traffic in May. Werner van Huyssteen, TomTom’s general manager, said like all other cities Delhi was not an exception. “Increased traffic on the road is a clear indicator of economic activities. We saw how road traffic reduced during the peak of pandemic and now we see a return of the congestion, but certainly we don’t see the congestion level soon reaching what it was before the onset of pandemic. That’s also because of the change in the working environment in India and how we do business more efficiently,” Werner said.
The trend seen in Bengaluru corroborates this. The city with high concentration of IT companies where work from home has become the new normal, has seen the maximum decline in congestion level at 51% compared to 71% in 2019.
According to the report coronavirus-induced lockdowns caused annual traffic congestion to fall in most countries for the first time in at least 10 years.