New Zealand Traffic Woes Worse Than Australia

Auckland revealed as New Zealand’s most congested city with drivers spending over four working weeks a year stuck in traffic

Auckland, 15 March 2017: TomTom today released the results of the TomTom Traffic Index 2017, the annual report detailing cities around the world with the most traffic congestion.

For Kiwi drivers, it is bad news as New Zealand now has a higher congestion level than Australia at 29.83%, with rising congestion across Auckland, Wellington, Hamilton, Dunedin and Christchurch. Since 2008, our national traffic congestion had risen by 43%, placing us worse off than Australia, whose congestion had risen by 35% to 27.5%.

For drivers in Auckland, their city still holds the crown of the most congested city in New Zealand (47th globally) with traffic now worse than Hong Kong, who have a population of 7.2 million. Auckland’s level of congestion has risen from 33% in 2015 to 38% in 2016. Drivers now spend an extra 45 minutes each day stuck in traffic. This is equivalent to 172 hours, or over four working weeks in a year.

It’s not great news for drivers in the Capital either. Traffic congestion has increased by 4% to 34%, adding an extra 43 minutes to drive time. During the morning peak hours, drivers can spend a whopping 72% extra time stuck in traffic, the worst morning congestion in the country.

Hamilton has also seen a significant 5% increase in traffic congestion to 26%. Drivers are spending an extra 103 hours per year stuck in traffic, equating to over 12 working days per year.

Dunedin has seen the largest traffic congestion increase in the country with congestion levels at 28% - an increase of 6% from last year’s results. The worst time to travel is between 3 – 4pm on Fridays where congestion extends the trip duration by 38%.

Christchurch has the smallest increase in traffic congestion of 3%, where drivers are facing 29 minutes extra travel time per day.

This is the first year TomTom Travel Index has included Tauranga’s congestion, finding it to be the least congested of the six New Zealand cities analysed. However in morning peak hour, drivers can still expect to add 39% extra travel time to their trip.

Phil Allen, VP Sales - Asia Pacific, TomTom, said: “The TomTom Traffic Index is released every year to help drivers, cities and transport planners to understand traffic congestion trends but most importantly, how to improve congestion globally. We really want everybody to think about how they can lower the amount of time they waste in traffic every day – and to realise that we all need to play a part. If even just five per cent of us changed our travel plans, we’d improve travel times on our major highways by up to thirty per cent*. Collectively, we can all work together to beat traffic congestion.

“Road authorities and local governments can use TomTom’s traffic data to better manage traffic flow during the rush hour. We can help businesses plan smarter working hours to help their employees avoid travelling during rush hour. And we give drivers the real-time traffic information and smart routing they need to avoid congested roads and get to where they want to be, faster.”

Using data from 2016, the TomTom Traffic Index looks at the traffic congestion situation in 393 cities in 48 countries on six continents – from Rome to Rio, Singapore to San Francisco. TomTom works with over 19 trillion data points. This is the sixth year of the TomTom Traffic Index.

See real time traffic congestion for Auckland and Wellington.

Congestion Up, Globally

TomTom’s historical data shows that traffic congestion is up by 23% globally since 2008 with Oceania recording the highest increase in the world by 36%.

Between 2015 and 2016, Europe’s traffic congestion has increased by 9%, North America is up by 5%, Asia and Oceania are both up by 12%, while South America is up 7% and Africa by 15%. It could be suggested that this points to economic growth in North America, and Economic depression in the rest of Europe. This European figure could be heavily influenced by Southern European countries such as Italy (-7%) and Spain (-13%) where there has been a marked drop in traffic congestion in the past eight years.

People can find out more about the TomTom Traffic Index, and discover where their home city ranks athttp://www.tomtom.com/en_gb/trafficindex. There’s also helpful advice on beating traffic congestion, as well as independent analysis.

Ranking of the most congested cities globally in 2016 (Overall daily congestion level – extra travel time – population over 800,000):

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