A new report by INRIX, a road traffic data company, revealed U.S. cities led the world in having the worst traffic congestion—making up 50% of the top 10 metros areas with highest amount of traffic.
The cities are rated based on the average time wasted per commuter, and cities such as Los Angeles, Washington D.C., San Francisco, Houston, New York and Seattle are ranked as the most congested, where commuters spent a total of 8 billion hours stuck in traffic last year.
The top 10 cities in the country with the worse traffic ranked in terms of average time wasted per commuter in 2015 were:
1. Los Angeles– 81 hours
2. Washington D.C. – 75 hours
3. San Francisco– 75 hours
4. Houston– 74 hours
5. New York, NY – 73 hours
6. Seattle– 66 hours
7. Boston– 64 hours
8. Chicago– 60 hours
9. Atlanta– 59 hours
10. Honolulu– 49 hours
The report urged large metro areas to apply the data to create and develop intelligent transportation systems that will help solve the issue of urban mobility. The data from the report can assist city planners on figuring out where to target their efforts to reduce traffic congestion.
“When working with limited budgets to manage transportation systems, using data-based performance metrics can make a major difference in the outcomes of planning and implementing new infrastructure,” the report said.
