Jakarta Ranks Among the Top Five Cities with the Worst Traffic

Jakarta's traffic worsened in 2016. This is evident from the Traffic Index for the first semester of 2016, which rose to fourth place, a significant deterioration from its eleventh-place ranking the previous year. Jakarta's traffic is only better than that of Nairobi, Kolkata, and Mumbai. In Southeast Asia, Manila also made the top ten worst traffic index rankings.

This global Traffic Index is published by Numbeo, a statistical research firm that records and updates traffic data for various cities every semester. The index measures traffic density and vehicle usage in a city, estimated travel times to reach destinations, carbon emissions, and other inefficiencies caused by traffic congestion.

Numbeo measures 160 cities worldwide. A higher index value indicates that the city's traffic is inefficient and economically causes public dissatisfaction. The average travel time for a single trip in Jakarta in 2016 was 57 minutes, 7 minutes slower than the previous year's 50 minutes. This travel time is comparable to that of other cities such as Tehran, Manila, and Istanbul.