This is how long you’ll sit in traffic in South Africa’s 10 major cities

If you feel like your daily commute to work is a never-ending nightmare, you have every right to feel aggrieved as new data shows that South Africa is among the worst countries fin the world when it comes to traffic congestion.

INRIX, a global SaaS and DaaS company that specializes in connected car services and transportation analytics, analyzed 500 terabytes of data from 300 million different sources covering over 5 million miles of road in 1,360 cities around the world to compile its 2017 Global Traffic Scorecard.

South East Asian and South American countries dominate the top of the rankings for countries with the worst traffic congestion, with South Africa placing eighth, with drivers spending an average of 36 hours in peak hour congestion a year.

In 2017, the US moved from fourth place to fifth, tied with Russia, in the global rankings with drivers spending 41 peak hours (i.e. commuting) a year in congestion.

Thailand tops the list in 2017 with drivers spending an average of 56 hours in peak hour congestion. Other countries in the top five include: Indonesia (51 hours), Colombia (49 hours), Venezuela (42 hours) and Russia (41 hours). The US shares 5th place, while the UK comes in 10th (31 hours) and Germany 11th (30 hours).

Congestion across the US, UK and Germany cost almost $461 billion in 2017 or $975 per capita. The average cost per driver was $1,445 (US), £968 (UK), and €1,168 (Germany).

Across the 1,360 cities studied, drivers spent an average of 9% of their travel time staring at the bumper in front of them as average traffic speed in congestion was just 8.9 mph (14.4 kph), the same speed as 2016, the report said.

Dublin remains the slowest major city studied at 4.6 mph (7.4 kph) during all congested periods, with peak hour speeds at 3.7 mph (6 kph). Out of the cities studied, Oaxaca, Mexico was the slowest city with average congested speeds of 3.6mph (5.9 kph).

Los Angeles topped the list of the world’s most gridlocked cities for the sixth straight year, with drivers spending 102 hours in congestion in 2017 during peak time periods, followed by Moscow and New York (tied at 91 hours), Sao Paulo (86 hours) and San Francisco (79 hours)

The US accounted for 10 of the top 25 cities worldwide with the worst traffic congestion.

In South Africa, Cape Town is rated as most congested city, ranking 41st globally, down from 33rd in the previous year’s ranking. Johannesburg is second, and also improved its ranking to 55th, from 44th on the global list.

Commuters in Cape Town spend, on average, 49 hours in peak traffic, while those drivers in Joburg spend 46 hours, with Durban, Pretoria and Pietermaritzburg making up the top five worst cities.

Read: The best times to leave for work in Cape Town and Joburg to avoid peak traffic