[imagesource: David Ritchie/African News Agency]

Globally, road congestion went down a fair bit after work-from-home policies were implemented and places closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite these trends, South African cities have been climbing the ranks for the most congested cities in the world.

INRIX, one of the leading providers of data and insight into how people move around the world, has released its 2021 Global Traffic Scorecard.

The company identified and ranked congestion and mobility trends in more than 1 ooo cities across 50 countries as economic and social disruption from the COVID-19 pandemic persisted.

The research followed the mobility trends from 10 cities in South Africa, ranking each one according to the most and least congestion.

I don’t know about you, but when I think of traffic in South Africa, Johannesburg’s massively clogged highways come to mind first.

But my assumption that the Gauteng city is the most congested in the country is actually wrong.

Rather, it is Cape Town, with residents losing an average of 59 hours a year to sitting in traffic.

This is compared to the least congested city on the list, Welkom, where residents can sit for less than an hour per year in traffic.

Both Cape Town and Johannesburg are climbing the global ranks, with Cape Town going from 95th in 2020 to 43rd in 2021 and Johannesburg climbing from 139th to 71st, reported MyBroadband.

Per INRIX’s Interactive Ranking & City Dashboards, insight was provided about each cities ranking, hours lost in congestion, change from pre-COVID-19, as well as the last-mile speeds.

The last point refers to the speed at which a driver can expect to travel 1,6 kilometres into the central business district (CBD) during peak hours.

Take a look at how South Africa stacks up according to the INRIX report:

Image: Screenshot from INRIX

Eish, looks like we’ve kissed those quiet lockdown roads goodbye for real now.

[sources:mybroadband&inrix]