Pretoria’s traffic congestion ranked third higest
Commuters in Pretoria spend an average of 20 minutes stuck in traffic each morning if their commute should be 30 minutes only.
Pretoria’s traffic is the third most congested of the country’s cities in spite of the capital’s extensive one-way road systems, generally wide roads and the introduction of the Bust Rapid Transit (BRT) system A Re Yeng.
Traffic congestion in the capital city during the morning peak-hour adds on average 52% to travelling time of commuters and 47% in the afternoon rush-hour.
Only Cape Town, followed by Johannesburg, beats Pretoria when it comes to congested morning rush-hour traffic, according to TomTom’s most recent traffic index.
Pretoria has overtaken East London as the third most congested city in South Africa, with an overall average congestion level of 24% as opposed to Johannesburg’s 26%.
TomTom, manufacturers of among others Global Position Systems (GPS), on Tuesday released its traffic index for 2014, finding South Africa’s traffic trends were unique when compared to other large world cities in that the morning rush-hour commute was worse than the evening rush-hour.
“We do know South Africans spend 11 days stuck in traffic annually, causing a rise in anxiety levels and affecting fuel consumption of many commuters,” said TomTom’s SA marketing manager Carey Dodd.
In all the country’s large cities, Monday morning traffic was the worst.
The worst traffic day in Gauteng during last year was 3 February, when the province was ravaged by severe storms that lead to localised floods.
Globally ranked at 55, Cape Town remains the most congested with morning commutes adding up to 72% to commuting time, followed by Johannesburg, ranked 77th, where morning congestion added up to 59% of commuting time.
Asked what TomTom’s opinion was about why Cape Town was the worst, Dodd said his company’s research revealed that globally, coastal cities were more congested, hindering access into these city centres.
TomTom’s information showed Pretoria’s average congestion level on highways was 10%, 29% on non-highways and the average delay per day with a 30 minute commute being 20 minutes. The delay per year for a 30 minute commute adds up to 76 hours.
The capital city has a total road network length of 11 708 kilometres of which 171 km are highways and 11 537 km are non-highways.
But, while spending time stuck in traffic, spare a thought for commuters in Istanbul, Turkey, where evening peak congestion levels were at 109%, 103% in Moscow, 96% in Saint Petersburg, also in Russia and 89% in Mexico City.
In South Africa, Cape Town, Johannesburg and Pretoria are followed by East London with morning peak congestion levels at 45%, Durban at 42% and Bloemfontein at 25%.
During 2014, TomTom expanded its traffic index to 218 cities in 36 countries.
The company found global trends revealed evening rush hour was the most congested time of day (except in South Africa) with bottlenecks nearly doubling journey times in some cities.
“In 2014 the average commuter spent an extra 100 hours a year travelling during rush hour,” Dodd said.
He said congestion levels increased everywhere in the world with levels on non-highways still being remarkably higher than on highways, resulting in commuters spending up to 11 days per year sitting in traffic.
Read: Major traffic nightmare looms for the east
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