Last year we spent 27 percent less time in traffic jams than a year earlier. This means that Brussels is now in 17th place in the list of most saturated traffic cities worldwide, while our capital was still in third place in 2021. Public transport is gaining ground.
In 2022, we lost an average of 98 hours in traffic jams in the capital. This is evident from the annual report of the American company Inrix about traffic jams in more than 1,000 cities around the world.
For the second year in a row, London is the most traffic-saturated city in the world: London motorists were stuck in traffic jams for an average of 156 hours in 2022. Chicago is in second place with 155 hours of traffic jams and Paris completes the top 3 with 138 hours of traffic jams last year.
Only seven cities in the top 25 have seen their congestion levels decrease between 2021 and 2022. Brussels stands out with a decrease of 27 percent less time lost in traffic jams.
By the way, Brussels is not the only Belgian city in the top 1,000. Antwerp (place 68), Liège (181), Namur (205), Bergen (234), Kortrijk (388) and Charleroi (478) also feature.
Inrix calculated the travel times by looking only at the time it takes to travel from the surrounding neighborhoods to and from the main employment centers in an urban area. The study used anonymized GPS data to identify the most frequent routes and destinations in a region to get a more accurate picture of commuting in that region.
Public Transport
Perhaps the fact that we are less stuck in traffic has to do with the popularity of public transport. This has increased last year and dominates commuter traffic in our capital. This is evident from Acerta’s mobility barometer, write Het Nieuwsblad.
In 2022, the (company) car represented only 43 percent of Brussels traffic, compared to 45 percent a year earlier. Public transport (train-metro-tram-bus) now reaches almost 47 percent of employees in the capital, surpassing the car.
In addition, 16 percent of employees go to work by bicycle. “In the Brussels-Capital Region, there has been no question of King Auto for some time now,” says Niko Smeets, Sales Director Acerta Brussels to Het Nieuwsblad.
This article is originally published on bruzz.be
