This city has 24 million people – and less traffic than Cape Town

The Chinese city of Shanghai has a population of 24 million, yet it has less traffic than Cape Town or Johannesburg.

Shanghai is one of the largest cities in the world with a population equivalent to just over one third of all the people living in South Africa.

Despite this, its robust public transport services and smart city design ensure that the streets are rarely jam-packed, making it easy and cheap to get from one part of town to another.

I recently had the opportunity to travel to China to attend the 2025 Shanghai Auto Show, during which time I experienced what it was like to experience the city’s streets at its most calm and its most chaotic.

Even at rush hour, I was impressed with how well the traffic flowed for a city with a population larger than many countries, which got me thinking about our own road network back home in South Africa.

I have spent years living in both Cape Town and Pretoria, and the one common experience across both settings is that the traffic can be incredibly slow on a day-to-day basis.

In Cape Town, I have not-so-fond memories of the long drive I used to take along the M3 to get to town, passing through areas like Newlands that seem to be busy from dawn until dusk these days.

Things aren’t much better in Gauteng, as I recently had an experience where it took well over two hours to make the 40km trip from Centurion to Sandton along the N1.

In January this year, it was revealed that Cape Town is now one of the top 10 worst-congested cities in the world, placing alongside other notorious metros like New York, Los Angeles, and London.

The study, conducted by the INRIX Global Traffic Scorecard, found that residents in the Mother City lose an average of 94 hours per year sitting in traffic – the equivalent of 3.9 days spent staring at the car in front of you.

Johannesburg was admittedly a lot better at 55 hours, though this is still a lot of time being lost idling every year.

What makes Shanghai different

Of course, Shanghai is not immune to congestion, and I experienced first-hand what it was like to be stuck in traffic at 17h00 when I left the massive Auto Show convention centre.

Naturally, the experience was still unpleasant in the way that any heavy traffic is, but the cars flowed in an orderly fashion that ensured we weren’t in one place for too long.

Chinese drivers can also be aggressive at changing lanes and overtaking, much like you’d see on the N1 in Joburg.

However, police officers are stationed at every major intersection at rush hour to prevent gridlock by ensuring that the central area remains clear.

It’s worth emphasizing that this was rush hour traffic combined with the mass exodus of people from a convention centre, yet cars still moved at a reasonable pace.

In contrast, I’ve personally experienced how the traffic in Cape Town’s CBD grinds to a halt whenever there’s a major event at Green Point Stadium.

One contributing factor for this discrepency is that China’s road network is massive, as nearly every road is three or more lanes wide.

On top of this, there are often separate lanes for buses or bicycles and motorbikes, which creates an incentive for people to use these alternate forms of transport to avoid the main congestion.

Large buses are a fairly common site, and private taxis are another popular alternative that reduces the number of cars with a single occupant on the road.

In comparison, Cape Town’s combination of mountainous and coastal geography makes it very difficult to add new roads or expand existing ones, limiting the number of routes to many areas.

Shanghai’s most valuable transport asset is without a doubt its metro rail service, which runs along several major routes throughout the city.

Buying a ticket is very straightforward with machines that dispense tickets according to your selected route.

You scan this ticket the first time as you enter the subway to pass the barrier, and you insert the ticket into the barrier on the way out.

The trains are admittedly very packed at peak hours with people squeezing into every available spot, but the cars themselves are clean and well-maintained with no sign of decay or vandalism.

Most importantly, the service is incredibly affordable, as the city places a price cap on how much an individual ticket costs.

While ticket fares are based on the distance travelled, this sum only increases to a maximum of 10 stations, after which the fee is the same.

Most commuters don’t travel this far either, as our guide explained that most citizens only need to travel three or four stations over.

The cost of doing so is just 4 yuan, or roughly R10 at the current exchange rate.

The maximum price, meanwhile, clocks in at 10 yuan, or R25.

It’s an impressive service, and so it comes as little surprise that this is the primary means of transport for millions of people in Shanghai.

In comparison, the South African Gautrain service has come under fire in recent months owing to its low ridership figures.

One of the two main reasons for this decline is its high prices, which are considered inaccessible for many local communities.

Additionally, the network currently only has one main line running from Pretoria to Johannesburg, with a single off-shoot that leads to O.R. Tambo International Airport.

This means that the Gautrain only runs through a handful of larger metros and business areas, making it difficult to access from the suburbs.

What’s more, it means that commuters may still need to rely on the Gautrain bus service or another form of transport for the last mile of their trip, making it less convenient.