36 Hours In Traffic

2023 Author: Eric Donovan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-08-25 09:36

German drivers have to be very patient. Every year there is a day and a half of standstill in traffic jams. It hits the people of Stuttgart particularly badly.

According to a new study, German drivers were stuck in traffic jams for around 36 hours on average last year. The Stuttgart team was particularly hard hit with 58 hours, followed by Cologne with 57 and Hamburg with 55 hours. In a European comparison, these cities are in 17th, 18th and 21st place, said the US company Inrix - a provider of traffic information - on Thursday. The front runners are Milan, Brussels, Antwerp, Paris and Manchester, where up to 70 hours were calculated.

Traffic jams as an economic indicator

Overall, the risk of being stuck in a traffic jam has decreased over the past year. Inrix registered a decrease of 17 percent worldwide, in Germany by 8 percent. The reasons for this are the high fuel prices and the economic crisis with high unemployment. The decline is particularly evident in the European debtor states: In Portugal, traffic jams were halved in 2011 compared to 2010, in Ireland they fell by a quarter, in Spain by 15 and in Italy by 12 percent.

"As it is with traffic, so it is with the economy," said Inrix manager Stuart Marks. "Traffic congestion is a great economic indicator of whether people are going to work, companies are shipping products, and consumers are spending." Therefore, the decline in traffic jams in Germany of eight percent and the Netherlands of seven percent made people sit up and take notice. However, the traffic situation in Germany intensified again in the first five months of 2012: the traffic jam times increased by six percent.

Biggest risk of traffic jams on Friday afternoon

According to the data comparison by Inrix, the greatest risk of traffic jams in Germany is on Friday afternoon. Then the drivers would have to expect that they are on the road around 27 percent longer than in times of low traffic. According to the study, it is best for commuters to come home on Monday evening.

To avoid possible standstills on the German autobahn, click on the traffic jam indicator on the Autogazette before starting your journey. This shows all traffic jams on the motorways and updates itself automatically every five minutes. (AG / dpa)