Warsaw named second most congested city in Europe

Warsaw traffic: photo - wikipedia

The study, which was carried out by in-car navigation products firm TomTom, claims that only Istanbul outdoes Warsaw in keeping drivers in a jam.

The TomTom Congestion Index, which the company touts as “the world's most accurate barometer of congestion in urban areas,” gives Warsaw an overall Congestion Level of 45 percent for the second quarter of 2012.

This result is some three percent worse than in the first quarter of the year.

“The ongoing construction of the city's second metro line certainly had an influence on this situation, and it will continue to cause problems for the next year and a half,” commented Jan Jakiej, chairman of the Metropolitan Association for Communications Integration (SISKOM) in an interview with the Interia news site.

Nevertheless, he estimates that drivers who spend an average two hours a day on the roads owing to delays are spending 4300 zloty (1040 euro) more money on petrol than they would if the congestion was under control.

Psychologist Adam Tarnawski advised “planning your time and route wisely” before venturing onto Warsaw's roads, arguing that being in a rush is “the main cause of stress.”

TomTom's study uses real time data captured by vehicles driving throughout each city's network of roads. The overall database contains over six trillion data measurements.

Following Istanbul and Warsaw, the next worst European cities on the index were Marseille, Palermo and Rome. (nh)