From world's 2nd slowest driving place to 5th largest CO2 emitter, report reveals Bengaluru traffic woes

Traffic woes in the Silicon valley of India is not hidden from anyone. Bengaluru's notorious traffic has made it the second slowest place to drive through in the world in 2022, according to a latest report by specialist in geolocation technologies, TomTom.

As per the report, it would take any one on an average of half an hour to cover 10 km. To be accurate, the report stated that travellers were able to cover 10 km of distance in Bengaluru in an average time of 29 minutes 9 seconds. However, travelling is painfully slower than Bengaluru in New York where it took 36 minutes and 20 seconds to travel 10 km in the centre of the city in 2022. The list also includes cities like Ireland's capital Dublin, Japan's Sapporo and Italy's Milan.

TomTom Traffic Index report

The 12th edition of the report found the traffic trend across 389 cities in 56 countries throughout 2022. The assessment is not only limited to the loss of time while driving, and also focuses on other factors like money, environmental impact, etc.

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To study the environmental impact the study took into account the CO2 emission per mile driven, and simulating how long it took to complete a 10 km trip within a city, for typical vehicles like EV, petrol and diesel cars.

Bengaluru ranks fourth in terms of hours lost due to traffic

The report found that Bengaluru's rush hour traffic has led to the loss of as much as 129 hours last year. Even after the rising popularity of WFH option post pandemic, there has been a rising trend in the number of hours lost in traffic jam. Dublin lost as much as 140 hours due to traffic jams.

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Prof. M N Sreehari, who is the advisor to the government of Karnataka for traffic, transportation and infrastructure and Chairman, Indian Smart Cities Development Organization for infrastructure, said that the revenue loss due to traffic jam is much more than the loss in revenue.

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Highlighting on the failure of Bengaluru Corporation and the traffic police, he says that the narrow and encroached road of the metro city fail to bother politicians or planners. Professor also said that there has been no effective planning in managing the traffic and the “footpaths are widened at the cost of the road as well"

How much does Bengaluru's traffic contribute in CO2 emission

Bengaluru ranked fifth in terms of CO2 emissions per driven mile during rush hour. As per the report, London is the major emitter of CO2 in terms of CO2 emissions per driven mile. Reflecting the emotion of nearly all the Bengalurians, Professor Ashish Verma of Institute of Science Bengaluru, believes that the result is not shocking.

 "Bengaluru is definitely among the worst congested cities because of misplaced infrastructure planning and transport interventions in the name of solving traffic problems without getting any results. However, I don't think we should really give too much importance to the relative ranking. It all depends on the sampling," Prof Verma said.