Inrix ranks U.S. most congested developed country in the world

The U.S. is the most congested developed country in the world, with drivers spending an average of 41 hours a year in traffic during peak hours, costing them nearly $305bn (£220bn) in 2017, an average of $1,445 (£1,042) per driver. The findings come from 163 Inrix’s annual Global Traffic Scorecard, which analysed 1,360 cities across 38 countries.

Additionally, the study revealed that the U.S. had three of the top five most congested cities globally, costing an economic drain upwards of $2.5bn (£1.8bn). Los Angeles came first, where drivers spent an average of 102 hours in traffic jams during peak congestion hours, costing them $2,828 (£2,040) each and the city $19.2bn (£13.8bn) from direct and indirect costs. New York came second (tied with Moscow) with 91 hours while San Francisco ranked fifth with 79 hours.

New York businesses suffered the most from congestion with an average of 14% travel time on weekdays in gridlock and where drivers wasted the most daytime hours stuck in traffic in the entire country. Santa Cruz also had the worst overall daytime congestion on arterial and highways with drivers spending 12% of their days sitting in traffic.

Downtown Metro Insights showed El Paso in Texas had the worst slowdowns where free flow speeds dropped from 43mph to 5mph when congested.

Inrix’s In and Out City Insights found that commuters around Everett in Washington spent more time stuck in traffic than anyone else with a rate of 28% on highways.

Weekend Insights revealed that Las Vegas drivers cruised slowest with congestion speeds at 5mph.

For a third consecutive year, the I-95 Cross Bronx Expressway in New York was ranked the worst corridor in the U.S. with the average driver spending 118 hours per year in congestion, an increase of 37% over last year.

A full copy of the report and additional findings are available on the <%$Linker:2External<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary />000link-external websiteInrix website linkfalsehttp://http//inrix.com/scorecard/falsefalse%>.