Amsterdam, 4 April 2013– TomTom today announces the 2012 Congestion Index, a report comparing congestion levels in 2012 versus 2011 in 161 cities and across five continents. The Annual Congestion Index finds Moscow the most congested city.
On average, journey times in Moscow are 66% longer during non-congested periods when traffic is flowing freely, and 106% longer during morning rush hour. TomTom's Congestion Index, including individual continent and city reports, can be found at www.tomtom.com/congestionindex.
TomTom's Congestion Index is the world's most accurate barometer of congestion in urban areas. The Index is uniquely based on real travel time data captured by vehicles driving the entire road network. TomTom's traffic database contains over six trillion data measurements and is growing by five billion measurements every day.
The top ten most congested cities, ranked by overall Congestion Level, in 2012 are:
1. Moscow 66%
2. Istanbul 55%
3. Warsaw 42%
4. Marseille 40%
5. Palermo 39%
6. Los Angeles 33%
7. Sydney 33%
8. Stuttgart 33%
9. Paris 33%
10. Rome 33%
"TomTom's Annual Congestion Index provides accurate insight into the world's most congested cities," said Ralf-Peter Schäfer, Head of Traffic at TomTom. "This detailed knowledge of the entire road network helps businesses and governments to make more informed decisions about how best to tackle, and avoid congestion. TomTom's world-class traffic information also helps drivers get to their destinations faster. Significantly, when used on a large scale, TomTom HD Traffic has the potential to ease congestion in cities and urban areas by routing drivers away from congested areas."
The methodology used in the Congestion Index compares measured travel times during non-congested periods (free flow) with travel times in peak hours. The difference is expressed as a percentage increase in travel time. The Index takes into account local roads, arterials, as well as highways. All data is based on actual GPS based measurements.
As well as assigning and ranking the overall congestion levels of over 161 cities around the world, the report analyses the congestion levels in cities at different times of the day and on different days of the week. TomTom analysed capital cities as well as cities with a population of over 800,000. In addition, a selection of key cities with smaller populations was included based on their regional importance to the transportation network. The purpose of adding these smaller cities was to provide a better understanding of congestion levels within individual countries.
Individual city reports include more detailed information such as the most congested day, time delay per year for commuters and congestion levels on main and secondary roads.
Separate European, North American, Australia/New Zealand and South Africa Congestion Index reports are available.
| 
