TomTom, the satellite navigation company specializing in vehicle guidance, published a report listing the slowest cities in the world during 2024. The 14th edition of the ‘TomTom Traffic Index’ compiled vehicle mobility information from 500 cities in 62 countries, distributed on the six continents, to estimate where it takes a person the longest to complete a 10-kilometer journey and where time is wasted the most drive.
The objective of the annual report is to evaluate and show how traffic evolves in cities year after year. Through an established methodology, the firm creates a traffic index for urban sites where metrics such as average average speed, the optimal speed of a trip and the lowest speed reached during peak hours are combined. At the end of the statistical analysis, TomTom returns the ‘live travel time per 10 kilometres’. This metric is what generates the list of the slowest cities in the world.
The slowest cities of 2024
The award for the slowest city goes to Barranquilla, Colombia. According to him Traffic Indexit takes a Colombian 36 minutes and 51 seconds to complete 10 kilometers. Although it is the highest figure on the list, it presents a decrease of 19 seconds compared to 2023. Second place on the ranking Calcutta, India, has it with 34 minutes and 33 seconds. Third place remains in that country, with the city of Bangalore, where a car takes 34 minutes and 10 seconds to complete the base distance.
The slowest city in Europe is London, England, with a time of 33 minutes and 17 seconds. In Asia it is Kyoto, Japan, where a vehicle takes 33 minutes and 16 seconds. In America, the Peruvian cities of Lima and Trujillo lead the list with seventh and ninth place respectively. In the general table, Mexico City occupies 17th place with 31 minutes and 53 seconds. Cartagena is in 20th place and Barcelona follows in 21st place.
The first city in the United States to appear in the ranking TomTom’s time is New York, although it is in 25th place, with a figure of 31 minutes and 6 seconds. Buenos Aires descends to the position with 30 minutes and 9 seconds. The last place on the table, also described as the fastest city, is Thousand Oaks, California, where a person travels 10 kilometers in 8 minutes and 36 seconds on average.
Time lost in traffic
The slowest cities are not necessarily the ones with the most traffic. For that category, the company has a separate index called traffic congestion. TomTom describes it as the difference between the time of a normal trip and the time of a trip during a busy day. “For example, a congestion level of 40 means that, on average, travel times on the road network in that area were 40 percent longer than when traffic is free,” the company says.
Barranquilla occupies first place as the slowest city, but Mexico City surpasses the 500 cities in terms of road congestion. On a traffic day, the trip takes 52% longer compared to a day of free movement. The figure has important connotations for the time spent driving.
In Barranquilla, people invested 130 extra hours of their lives in the act of driving just to leave during rush hour. In Mexico City, the number skyrockets. Drivers added 150 more hours to their usual trips during the year by facing traffic at its peak. The city of Lima is where drivers lose the most time, with 155 extra hours.
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