One study earlier in the year concluded that Jakarta has the worst traffic in the world. But if we go by another, more recent study, we may have a reason to celebrate (probably while we’re still stuck in macet).
According to Numbeo, a website that provides information on living conditions in countries and cities around the world, Jakarta traffic doesn’t suck as bad as 10 other cities in the world, including Mumbai (the worst in the world), Cairo, and even Miami.
The 165 cities in the study are ranked based on Numbeo’s Traffic Index, with a higher score meaning worse traffic. Numbeo’s Traffic Index is “a composite index of time consumed in traffic due to job commute, estimation of time consumption dissatisfaction, CO2 consumption estimation in traffic and overall inefficiencies in the traffic system.”
Is this a reason for us Jakartans to be cocky about our relatively not-so-bad traffic? Well, not really, because despite coming 11th overall, Jakarta fared very poorly in the CO2 Emission Index, worse than every city in the study except Cairo, which supposedly has the 2nd worst traffic in the world (that would explain why we feel like choking to death every time we drive with our windows down).
Interestingly enough, this is the second time Jakarta has come in 11th place in a ranking of the cities with the worst traffic in the world this year. Waze, the popular navigation app, issued a report, dubbed the “Driver Satisfaction Index”, that also placed Jakarta in 11th place in terms of cities with the worst “frequency and severity of traffic jams.” This seems to be pretty solid evidence that Jakarta doesn’t have the worst traffic in the world, though Waze’s top 10 worst traffic cities are quite different from Numbeo’s.
Numbeo’s 11 cities with the worst traffic:
1. Mumbai, India
2. Cairo, Egypt
3. Nairobi, Kenya
4. Pune, India
5. Kolkata, India
6. Miami, FL, USA
7. Tehran, Iran
8. Dhaka, Bangladesh
9. Recife, Brazil
10. Denver, CO, USA
11. Jakarta, Indonesia
Read the full Numbeo report here.
