India's traffic woes: Kolkata, Bengaluru lead congestion; Mumbai, Delhi also among slowest cities, finds TomTom report

West Bengal's capital Kolkata has over taken IT hub Bengaluru to take first place as India's most congested city in 2024, according to the annual TomTom report. While the garden city slipped to the second spot, Pune rounded up the top three, the report showed.

Notably, Kolkata is at second position globally. Second only to Colombian city Barranquilla topped the chart with drivers traveling at an average speed of 10.3 mph, taking 36 minutes to complete a 10 km journey.

In Kolkata, drivers took an average of 34 minutes and 33 seconds to cover 10 km and in Bengaluru (worldwide #3) had drivers taking 34 minutes and 10 seconds average to travel 10 kms.

Further, Hyderabad and Chennai comprised the top five spots, with Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Ernakulam, Jaipur and New Delhi taking the top 10 spots.

Global trends in 2024

Further, as per the report, in 2024, 379 cities out of 500 (76 per cent) saw their overall average speed decrease compared to 2023. Despite this decrease, average speeds under optimal conditions, characterized by free-flowing traffic, remained stable and even showed slight improvements in most cities. This suggests that the observed deterioration in average speeds is primarily driven by dynamic factors affecting congestion levels rather than changes in road infrastructure.

The differences in travel times (or average speeds) across cities stem from a combination of static and dynamic factors that significantly influence traffic flow and overall driving conditions.

Three Indian cities feature in the top 5 list of slowest cities. London, the first European city in the ranking, is in 5th position, with an average speed of 11.2 mph in the city.

The report added that the TomTom Traffic Index used floating car data collected from various sourcesand analysed a representative sample covering 458 billion miles driven in 2024, allowing to track and demonstrate how traffic patterns have changed in cities worldwide.