Commuters in Los Angeles spent over 100 hours a year in traffic jams in 2016, which made the city become the most congested in the world.
The conclusion is not based just on how much time the average driver spends sitting in traffic jams, but from the INRIX 2016 Traffic Scorecard. The latter was done by analyzing 1,064 cities in 38 countries, which makes it the largest study of this kind, its makers claim.
Over 300 million different sources were monitored to obtain the data that produced this study, and they covered five million miles of paved roads. The data they collected and analyzed added up to 500 terabytes.
If you have no idea what 500 terabytes mean regarding data, just imagine that a single terabyte can store roughly 250,000 MP3s, which would add up to two years of non-stop music. Multiply that by 500 to get an idea of why it took them two months to analyze everything.
Interestingly, the fact that Los Angeles was the most congested city in the world in 2016 does not mean it was the slowest. Instead, Dublin was the slowest major city studied, with its drivers having a peak hours speed of 3.4 mph (5.5 km/h). If you look at the figures during all congested periods, things were slightly better, with a speed of 4.7 mph (7.5 km/h).
The average human can walk at about 3.1 mph (5 km/h), so you can see what rush-hour traffic can mean in Dublin. The same can be stated about Oaxaca, Mexico, where the slowest traffic recorded across all congested periods drove at 3.6 mph (5.9 km/h).
The makers of this study have estimated that the average American spent an hour a week stuck in traffic on his or her commute last year. Sitting in traffic costs money, and drivers in London have suffered an average cost of £,1911 each over the course of last year because of congestion.
Experts estimate that an hour in traffic in the USA costs between $12.81 and $25.19. Elon Musk might have a point with those tunnels.
Over 300 million different sources were monitored to obtain the data that produced this study, and they covered five million miles of paved roads. The data they collected and analyzed added up to 500 terabytes.
If you have no idea what 500 terabytes mean regarding data, just imagine that a single terabyte can store roughly 250,000 MP3s, which would add up to two years of non-stop music. Multiply that by 500 to get an idea of why it took them two months to analyze everything.
Interestingly, the fact that Los Angeles was the most congested city in the world in 2016 does not mean it was the slowest. Instead, Dublin was the slowest major city studied, with its drivers having a peak hours speed of 3.4 mph (5.5 km/h). If you look at the figures during all congested periods, things were slightly better, with a speed of 4.7 mph (7.5 km/h).
The average human can walk at about 3.1 mph (5 km/h), so you can see what rush-hour traffic can mean in Dublin. The same can be stated about Oaxaca, Mexico, where the slowest traffic recorded across all congested periods drove at 3.6 mph (5.9 km/h).
The makers of this study have estimated that the average American spent an hour a week stuck in traffic on his or her commute last year. Sitting in traffic costs money, and drivers in London have suffered an average cost of £,1911 each over the course of last year because of congestion.
Experts estimate that an hour in traffic in the USA costs between $12.81 and $25.19. Elon Musk might have a point with those tunnels.