Los Angeles tops list of cities most congested by traffic in new analysis

The City of Angels can apparently go by another, less poetic moniker: The City of Traffic Congestion.

The metro area of more than 15 million people topped the list of gridlocked cities, with drivers spending 102 hours sitting in traffic congestion during peak time periods last year, according to the 2017 traffic scorecard by INRIX, a leader in transportation analytics and connected car services.

Los Angeles took the title for the sixth consecutive year, beating out 1,360 cities in 38 countries around the globe. INRIX calculated the results of its eleventh annual report by combining anonymous, real-time global positioning system probe data from 300 million connected cars and devices with real-time traffic flow data and other criteria, such as construction and road closures.

The report notes that "congestion is a significant and growing burden on our cities," and it chalks growing congestion up to population and economic growth combined with continued urbanization.

Traffic congestion doesn't come cheap. INRIX estimates that such congestion costs U.S. drivers nearly $305 billion in 2017, or $1,445 per driver. Those costs come directly and indirectly from sources like wasted time, fuel and productivity.

The 10 Most Congested Cities in the United States in 2017:

But traffic isn't unique to the U.S. It's a global phenomenon, with drivers across the 1,360 cities studied spending an average of 9 percent of their travel time in bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Globally, five U.S. cities rank among the 10 most-traffic-congested cities in the world, but Moscow; Sao Paulo; Bogota, Colombia; London; and Paris join the U.S. in mixing up the global ranking.

The 10 Most Congested Cities in the World in 2017:

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