A sweeping new international study has exposed a worsening global traffic crisis, placing Istanbul at the top of the congestion chart for 2025 — with INRIX data revealing the Turkish metropolis’s drivers spent an average of 118 hours stuck in traffic this year, marking a 12 percent increase over the prior year.
The study canvassed 36 countries and nearly 1,000 cities worldwide, offering a comprehensive snapshot of urban mobility pressures. According to INRIX’s 2025 Global Traffic Scorecard, Istanbul has now overtaken all major global hubs, underscoring the serious strain economic growth, population pressures, and infrastructural bottlenecks are exerting on the city’s road network.
Trailing Istanbul, Chicago emerges as the second most congested city globally. Residents of Chicago lost an average of 112 hours to traffic in 2025 — a figure that places it not only at the top of U.S. cities in terms of gridlock, but also just behind Istanbul in the worldwide standings.
In the United States, Chicago has now overtaken New York City as the most gridlocked metropolis, narrowly surpassing other major urban centers such as Philadelphia, Los Angeles and Boston. The cost of this congestion is steep: in Chicago, the average driver’s productivity loss due to traffic jams is estimated at over US$ 2,063 this year.
Globally, the picture is bleak. The INRIX report indicates that roughly 62 percent of the studied cities experienced worsened congestion in 2025 compared to previous years. Though some European cities such as London and Paris bucked the trend — seeing either stable or slightly improved traffic delays — congestion surged in much of the rest of Europe. Germany, for instance, recorded significant increases in traffic delays across 62 cities, with commuters there collectively losing hundreds of millions of hours in travel time.
Experts interpreting the findings warn of a structural mismatch between rising demand for vehicular travel and insufficient expansion or modernization of infrastructure systems. As cities grow and populations climb, road networks and urban design are failing to keep pace — a situation made worse by dense urbanization and increased car use.
The 2025 Global Traffic Scorecard’s findings serve both as a wake-up call and a call to action. Urban planners and city authorities worldwide may need to reevaluate mobility strategies — investing in smarter transport infrastructure, improving public transit options, and exploring policies to curb excessive vehicular load. Without such interventions, experts suggest that traffic woes are likely to intensify, undermining both quality of life and economic productivity.
