Global Traffic Scorecard 2025: A World Stuck in Slow Motion
Sometimes the most surprising stories hide inside familiar routines, like sitting behind a long line of brake lights wondering why everything feels slower than last year. The newly released INRIX 2025 Global Traffic Scorecard brings numbers to that shared irritation, and honestly, reading through it feels a bit like staring into the mirror of global mobility dysfunction. Out of nearly a thousand cities across 36 countries, congestion rose in most places—62% saw traffic worsen—making 2025 another year where mobility progress slipped backward. Yet, interestingly, the U.K. broke the pattern, almost quietly, showing a rare improvement in travel delays across many of its cities. Nearly half of the U.K. urban areas recorded declining congestion, which is unusual considering the global trend is undeniably heading the other way.
London still sits at the top of the U.K. congestion chart, but the city feels a touch less suffocating. Drivers in the capital lost 91 hours sitting idle—still a painful figure, yet it’s 10% lower than last year, and in numbers like this, a ten-percent improvement almost feels like a miracle. The next worst cities—Bristol, Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham—form a predictable lineup, but what stands out more is the shifting pressure points: smaller cities like Cambridge and Rochester suddenly spiked, each seeing a 15% jump. Across the country, the economic punch of traffic delays amounts to about £11 billion in lost productivity, fuel, and time—abstract numbers until you realize that means about £822 per driver. You could fly to Lisbon and back on that.
Step outside the U.K. and the picture darkens quickly. Istanbul keeps its notorious crown with 118 hours of traffic delay per driver, making it the world’s congestion capital yet again. Chicago and Mexico City follow, both comfortably above 100 hours. A few dense Western cities bucked the trend—Los Angeles slipped by just 1%, New York held flat, and Paris actually improved by 7%, which is impressive for a city mid-metro transformation—but these examples are exceptions. The overall reality is more stubborn: mobility infrastructure is struggling to keep up with urban population, car dependency, and aging road systems.
Germany’s numbers underline that struggle with uncomfortable clarity. Seventy-seven percent of German cities saw worsening congestion in 2025, and Cologne now ranks as the country’s worst traffic environment. Drivers there lost 67 hours this year, a full 20% jump from 2024. Düsseldorf, Berlin, Stuttgart, and Munich follow closely, forming a cluster of urban bottlenecks shaped by density, construction, commuting patterns, and maybe a bit of resignation. Berlin alone clocked about €1.1 billion in economic loss tied to traffic delays—proof that congestion isn’t just annoying, it’s expensive. Nationwide, the average German driver lost 47 hours to gridlock, costing roughly €750 per person, with a total national loss of €5.3 billion. One corridor—the A52 near Essen—became a symbol of the trend, swallowing 42 hours per driver on its own.
All of this brings INRIX to its central message: mobility planning without real-time data is like trying to fix a city using intuition rather than measurement. Traffic signals, safety analytics, parking patterns, population movement—every element matters if cities want to reverse the trend. Urban planners talk about “smart mobility,” but this report shows how rare measurable progress still is. The U.K. may offer a small glimmer of hope, but globally, the story remains that movement is slowing, cities are straining, and the world is paying for it—literally. The Scorecard isn’t just a dataset; it feels like a warning label attached to modern life: build better systems now, or get comfortable staring at taillights.