Istanbul fifth city in world with highest traffic density

ISTANBUL

Istanbul has been ranked the fifth metropolis across the globe and the second in Europe with the highest traffic density, with Russia’s capital Moscow leading both lists, an international navigation company has announced.

According to data from the Dutch-based company Tomtom, Mumbai in India is a runner-up in the global list. Bogota in Colombia is third and Manila in the Philippines came fourth.

In the Europe list, Ukraine’s capital Kiev is the third city after Moscow and Istanbul with the highest traffic density. Novosibirsk in Russia and Odessa in Ukraine took the fourth and the fifth rows on the list.

The data also showed that time spent in traffic in Istanbul increased by 51 percent over the past few years. It now takes 45 minutes on average in Istanbul to reach one point to another, which could have taken 30 minutes under normal circumstances years ago.

The exact hour when the most traffic overload occurs in Istanbul is 18:00 on Fridays, the company said.

According to the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK), there were some 4.5 million vehicles registered in Istanbul as of August 2021, which is equal to the total number of vehicles in 22 provinces across Turkey.

Some 3.1 million of these vehicles are cars and 96,000 of them are minibuses. There are 38,000 buses and some 138,000 trucks with licenses allowing them to enter traffic. The rest are motorbikes and delivery cars.

The number of the registered vehicles across the country reached 25 million in 2021.