Vancouver makes list of world's worst cities for traffic

If you find yourself stalled on Vancouver roads for what feels like forever during morning and evening rush hour, it turns out that the traffic you’re stuck in is among the worst in the world.

That’s according to the latest TomTom Traffic Index, which ranked Vancouver 69th out of 500 cities worldwide.

The Dutch location technology and electronics company gathered traffic data from 2024 to determine its newest ranking.

The index is based on floating car data (FTD) that TomTom collects from various sources to create traffic services for our clients and customers.

TomTom

“In the Traffic Index, we use a representative sample of this data, spanning 737 billion km, to assess and show how traffic evolved in cities around the globe throughout 2024,” said the company on its website.

TomTom’s travel time rating for Vancouver found that it took an average of 27 minutes and three seconds to drive 10 km in the city, which increased by 50 seconds from 2023.

The city’s overall congestion level was calculated at 35 per cent, making Vancouver the 96th worst country in the world for traffic jams and delays.

TomTom broke down the data further, revealing that Vancouver drivers took an average of 28 minutes and 29 seconds to travel a distance of 10 km during morning rush hour. The average speed for cars during these early hours on the road was 21.1 km/h, which is a snail’s pace when you’ve got to get to work on time. The index reported the average congestion level to be 45 per cent during this time.

Evening rush hour was worse, as it took drivers in the city an average of 33 minutes and 54 seconds to drive 10 km at an average speed of 17.7 km/h, with a 67 per cent congestion level.

Overall, TomTom found that folks driving in Vancouver spent 86 hours (or three days and 14 hours) of extra time driving in rush hours in 2024 — a nine-hour and 57-minute increase from 2023.

What Vancouver roads do you think are the most congested? Let us know in the comments.