The latest Inrix Traffic Scorecard shows that Cape Town was the most traffic-congested city in South Africa in 2020.
Cape Town also took 95th position in the global congestion rankings.
The report noted, however, that cities across the world have seen a big drop in traffic levels due to Covid-19.
“The global pandemic, and related government shutdowns, had dramatic and varying impacts on how much people drove in 2020,” stated the report.
“As traffic volume dropped due to the global pandemic, vehicle speeds increased, which has played a significant role in the rise of fatality rates around the world,” it added.
Traffic in South Africa
Inrix stated that cities across South Africa saw sharp decreases in traffic congestion during 2020 – which was down over 70% in several areas.
The measure used in the report to track congestion is “hours lost”.
This is defined as the “total number of hours lost in congestion during peak commute periods compared to free-flow conditions”.
Cape Town took first place with 29 hours lost in congestion during the year, followed by Johannesburg on 23 hours lost and Pretoria on 25 hours lost.
Port Elizabeth and Pietermaritzburg were in fourth and fifth place respectively.
An interesting finding from the report was that Vanderbijlpark and Welkom both saw the number of hours lost in congestion fall to zero.
Bloemfontein also saw a sharp drop in traffic, and experienced one hour lost in congestion for the year.
The table below lists the most traffic-congested cities in South Africa for 2020.
Click on the table to enlarge it.
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