İstanbul Second Most Congested City in the World

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The INRIX, an economy and business research center, has released its 2018 Global Traffic Scorecard. Prepared based on analyses of 220 cities, the report has shown that İstanbul is the second most congested city.

According to the report, while the most congested city has been Moscow, the capital of Russia, it has been followed by the capital of Colombia, Bogota, the capital of Mexico, Mexico City and the capital of Brazil, São Paulo.

As for the five cities with the lowest density of traffic congestion, they are Waterloo in Canada, Wichita and Tulsa in the US, Cordoba in Spain and Saskatoon in Canada.

The report has also shown that while the traffic congestion in Moscow has decreased by 12 percent in comparison with the previous report, congestion in İstanbul has increased by 6 percent.

Drivers stuck in traffic for 6.5 days in a year

When the hours lost in traffic congestion in a year are considered, İstanbul ranks 32nd among the 201 other cities of the world. A driver in İstanbul spends an average of 157 hours stuck in traffic, which means that drivers in the city spend almost 6.5 days a year in traffic.

The capital of Colombia, Bogota ranks first in this category with 272 hours.

While the capital of Turkey, Ankara ranks 11th in the list, the Aegean province of İzmir is the 12th city with the highest number of hours lost in traffic.

They said, "We ranked 20th"

Mustafa Sünnetçi, the Deputy Director General of Department of Transportation of İstanbul Metropolitan Municipality, made a statement on September 25, 2018 and stated that according to the data of INRIX, the traffic congestion in İstanbul has eased.

Sünnetçi further claimed that İstanbul, which previously ranked 20th among 220 cities in terms of traffic congestion, was now the 17th city in that regard.

However, when the reports released by the INRIX are considered, while Turkey ranked 3rd among 220 cities in 2017, it became the second most congested city in 2018. (EKN/SD)

* Photograph: AA - Archive