These are certain things you don't need to tell a Bengalurean about, like, going from Indiranagar to MG Road on a Monday morning could take hours or that going to Mekhri Circle on the eve of Deepavali will include hours of waiting time in traffic. Another recent report that Bengaluru is the most congested and the second slowest city in India provides further evidence for the age-old grouse by the city residents.
The report titled ‘Mobility and Congestion in Urban India’, published by US-based National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), found Bengaluru to be the most congested city in the country followed by Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata. The report further found that Bengaluru was the second slowest city in terms of traffic speeds only behind Kolkata.
The researchers studied 154 Indian cities and measured trips based on the web-mapping service, Google Maps. They particularly studied pairs of trip instances taking place around the same time on different days.
The report further stated that policies should be framed to address the concerns of congestion at the heart of Bengaluru. It stated, “Given their importance to the Indian economy, these areas with the highest levels of congestion, such as the center of Bengaluru, should be the focus of policy effort to alleviate congestion, and of future research to identify the most effective policies.”
Interestingly, the report also notes that, in terms of traffic speeds, the fastest Indian cities surveyed were slower than the American cities surveyed.
The report comes a week after cab aggregator Ola released a report, which stated that Bengaluru's infamous slow traffic is the third slowest among 20 cities surveyed in India, only behind Patna and Kolkata.