Kolkata, Bengaluru suffer from slowest moving traffic: Ola

Bottlenecks worsen speed issues with these cities clocking a paltry 17-18 km/hr, says the aggregator

Kolkata and Bengaluru have the lowest average speeds for traffic among the top seven cities in the country, clocking in at a paltry 17 and 18 km an hour, respectively, according to app-based taxi aggregator Ola.

The company, which crunches location and traffic data to help improve estimated time of arrival (ETA) and faster travel time for cabs on its platforms, collated data over the past six months to show traffic patterns across Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune and Kolkata.

The report noted that the highest average speed for vehicles in the top seven metros is 33 km an hour between 3am  and 6am, when traffic density is at its lowest. Conversely, the lowest average speed for vehicles was 19 km an hour between 6 pm and 9 pm, understandably due to people travelling home from work.

Delhi and Pune topped the charts for having the fastest moving traffic among Indian metros, with an average vehicular speed of 23 km an hour. Chennai, Mumbai and Hyderabad followed with average speeds of 21, 20 and 19 km an hour.

It also found that on an average, people working in the metro cities travelled an average of 11.6 km to get to work and spent 34.8 minutes getting there. The traffic congestion situation in Kolkata, Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad was worsened through easily identifiable bottlenecks. “Kolkata stands still at Shyambazar and Park Street, Mumbai barely moves at Saki Naka and Powai, Bengaluru stops at Silk Board and Domlur and Charminar brings Hyderabad to a standstill,” said Ola.

The abundance of data on how traffic works can help better plan cities, decongest roads and help with better traffic management. Ola says it is working to get this data into the hands of the Indian governments to helps solve people’s traffic woes.

“We are working with the government at multiple levels to put this rich data to use over the long term for improving the state of mobility in the cities we live in,” the company stated.