Why in News:

• An analysis of traffic congestion done in more 400 cities across six continents has found that commuters in Mumbai spent the most time on the road last year.

Background:

• Mumbai ranked first in the study, ‘Traffic Index-2018’, by location technology specialist
  TomTom, with a congestion level of 65 per cent
• New Delhi ranked fourth with a congestion of 58 per cent.
• Mumbai held on to the top rank for the second consecutive year, beat Bogota (63 per cent), Lima (58 per cent) and Moscow (56 per cent).
• Overall study covered 403 cities in 56 countries and defined congestion as the extra time
  added to road travel when traffic doesn’t flow freely.
• The best time in Mumbai without any congestion would be 2 am and 5 am, when traffic flowed freely.
• The peak hours between 8 am and 10 am resulted in a congestion of 80 per cent, which shot up to 102 per cent between 5 pm and 8 pm, when offices shut for the day.
• August 21 considered as the worst day to be on the road bringing traffic movement to a complete standstill for the better part of the day leading to a congestion of 111 per cent.
• They suggested expanding the scope of the city’s public transport network in order to provide end-to-end connectivity and businesses to provide flexible working hours to employees to ease traffic moving towards the suburbs.