In a rapidly urbanising landscape, traffic congestion remains among the most challenging tasks that city planners and residents are confronted with. The first formal writings on city traffic began to emerge around 1903 in New York. Overtime, as cities swelled with population, private vehicles took over the roads resulting in slower mobility, pedestrian hazards and lost hours. All of this gave rise to the need of studying traffic worldwide closely, with the hope that one could record, learn and benefit from the results. The Tom Tom Traffic Index is one such annual global study that collated anonymised GPS data and real-world travel times. With its study, it reveals the latest patterns and rankings of traffic congestion worldwide. In the most recent data given out by the Tom Tom Traffic Index, Indian cities have come to dominate the ranks for traffic congestion, revealing long-standing issues in planning, transport management and road space allocation.

Indian Cities In Global Context

The thoroughgoing urban mobility crisis—an equally lived everyday experience for the resident of the metropolitans—of India comes out in stark transparency in the Tom Tom Traffic Index 2025. The tech-jungle of Bengaluru has come out as the table-topper within Indian cities and the 2nd most congested city worldwide, preceded only by Mexico City. The average congestion in Bengaluru stands at 74.4 percent. In 2025, average peak-hour speeds plunged to a jarring 13.9 kmph while drivers took on average 36 minutes and 9 seconds to cover mere 10 km, an increase of over two minutes compared to the previous year reports. Annually, commuters in Bengaluru lose a whopping 168 hours roughly stuck in traffic, a duration equivalent to an entire work week.

Pune comes in second within Indian cities, sitting at the 5th spot globally for congestion. Its rush-hour jams average speed around 18 kmph with significant time lost on short journeys.

Other Indian cities, too, are not so far behind within the top 50 places in the Tom Tom Traffic Index 2025. Mumbai sits at the 18th position while New Delhi is at 23rd. Kolkata ranks on 29th while Jaipur and Chennai are also among the top tiers of slow traffic globally, ranking on 30th and 32nd respectively. Overall, the average congestion level in India is at 37.4 percent.

These rankings sternly underline the urban mayhem that Indian metropolitans have become, in need of immediate address and resolution.

Source: Tom Tom Traffic Index

A Look In The Rear-View

Once compared with the previous year reports, the positions of Indian cities have shifted notably. In the Tom Tom Traffic Index 2023, though Bengaluru was still clogged and congested, it ranked slightly lower in the list than its current 2nd position.

Kolkata, on the other hand, previously held a higher position on the list and was cited as the most congested Indian city. In the year 2024, Kolkata was where Bengaluru sits today. Bengaluru and Pune followed in close on 2nd and 3rd position respectively.

Compared to 2024, New Delhi saw a 3.5 percentage point increase in average congestion in 2025. In the year 2024, the average speed stood at 21.9 kmph.

Global Traffic Congestion: The Broader Picture

If one takes a bird’s-eye-view of the overall traffic congestion globally, the picture from most urban centres comes to be rather worrying. Driven mostly by unplanned population growth and the dependency on private vehicles, cities across continents show a rise in commute times, with several reporting annual loses of 100-200 hours due to peak-hour travel.

On curious finding that raises concerns is how the traffic bottlenecks that had been historically limited to traditional megacities is now spilling into what’s seen as ‘satellite cities’ and other semi-urban towns. All of this hints at a deepening structural oversight in urban transport planning worldwide.

In terms of ranking, Mexico City remains the most congested city on the planet with an average congestion of bizarre 75.9 percent. The time lost per year in Mexico City to traffic amounts to 184 hours. This position has remained a familiar one for decades now for Mexico City with commuters reduced to literally taking one step at a time. Further, European and Asian cities feature equally on the list, underscoring that congestion is no longer just a developing-world problem and needs a radical revision on a global scale.

Tom Tom Traffic Index 2025: What’s Gotten Better, And What Hasn’t

A few cities in India show marginal improvement. For instance, Mumbai, which was previously showing alarming figures has seen a decrease in congestion, suggesting infrastructure projects like metro expansions and elevated expressways taking up the weight of commuters and easing up congestions. Similarly, Hyderabad has seen slight gains, with improvements in traffic flow in selected corridors.

However, many problems continue to persist. Rapid surge in private vehicle registrations—exemplified in cities like Bengaluru which witnesses daily additions of 1,500 vehicles—signal that growth in cars and two-wheelers continually outrun infrastructure expansion and adequate enhancements in public transport.

Despite metro networks and bus services expanding in several cities, public transport remains insufficiently integrated, unreliable and inconvenient. Nevertheless, now more than ever, one fails to oversee the fact that personal cars have continued to be a class marker in India for a long time. While initiatives like car pool have seen some takers in various cities, whole cars with one individual each are still commonplace.

The result is that walkability is obscenely, almost fatally, compromised. Not only are people wasting away hours stuck in traffic but pedestrian and cycling strips often lag behind, with streets prioritised for big cars making the shortest of journeys a painful experience.

Walkability And Urban Mobility

Crucially, traffic congestion cannot be seen independent of the broader questions of urban design and walkability. In India, studies show that Mumbai is the least walkable city owing to factors such as poor safety ratings, low access to car-free zones and high monthly rainfall that puts the infrastructure into hazard. On the other hand, Munich was ranked number 1 among walkable cities, with 86 percent of the population living with a comfortable 1km distance of a car-free space.

If the recent study of the Tom Tom Traffic Index reveals anything, it’s that our streets are highly compromised by grand motorisation. From most angles, including health, safety and happiness, high-capacity public transport and their ground-level realisation, prioritising people-centric urban design and enhancing walkability around the cities comes out as the need of the hour. As commuters continue to spend precious hours stuck in traffic, sometimes missing expensive flights on account of it, the imperative for smarter, more people-friendly and less pedestrian-hostile cities has never been clearer.