Which city has the world’s worst traffic? Hint: it’s not Manila (yet)

Motorists are trapped in the rush-hour gridlock in Jakarta.

Commuters in Metro Manila have to endure the punishment of heavy traffic daily, wrought by insufficient roads and unruly bus and jeepney drivers. Yet it can be even worse, as evidenced by a new survey by motor oil company Castrol. In the index for the worst traffic in the world, the Indonesian capital Jakarta was ranked first. The survey stated that drivers in the Jakarta are stopping and starting their cars 33,240 times per year and were idling 27 percent of the time they were on the road.

The list was calculated using data from TomTom navigation devices in 78 countries. An algorithm calculated the number of stops and starts encountered during a strip, and multiplied by the average distance driven per year. It found that on the average, drivers around the world are spending an average of up to a third of their time just idling.

After Jakarta on the “worst” list comes Istanbul, Turkey; Mexico City, Mexico; Surabaya, Indonesia; and St. Petersburg, Russia. Thailand ranked number 8 on the “worst” list. Manila was not included in the survey, as TomTom doesn’t have a big presence here. So there is, sadly, a high probability that we could crack that top 10. Perhaps Waze can come up with their own “worst” list.