Recently, Gaode Maps, together with the Department of Big Data Development of the State Information Center, the Daimler Joint Research Center for Sustainable Mobility at Tsinghua University and other authoritative organizations, released the "2020 Second Quarter Traffic Analysis Report for Major Cities in China".

The report focuses on calculating the average length of stopping delays for vehicles passing through traffic light intersections to determine the congestion in the morning and evening peaks in major cities across the country.

The data showed that the top three cities in terms of intersection delays were Dongguan, Shenzhen and Foshan in that order, with the length of delay for vehicles passing through traffic light intersections exceeding 40s/vehicle, 39s/vehicle and 38s/vehicle, respectively, during peak hours in these three cities.

What's surprising is that Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, which have always been considered more congested, didn't make the list of the top three cities, and Guangzhou isn't even among the top 20 cities in terms of congestion.

But the waiting time to judge the congestion is not the only criterion, so from the intersection of the vehicle queuing length of the situation, the longest queue of the top three cities for Xi'an, Guiyang and Guangzhou, the morning and evening peak queuing length of 141.61m, 128.87m, respectively, 128.59m. This ranking of the first-tier cities in the first place, only the Guangzhou occupies the first position.

Additionally, the report calculated the "Intersection Delay Index", which is a comprehensive assessment of congestion, through the length of time waiting for traffic lights at intersections and the number of stops, etc. According to the report, the top 10 cities with the highest congestion delay indexes among 50 cities monitored by the big data were Chongqing, Xi'an, Shenzhen, Dalian, Nanjing, Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Changsha, and Jinan, respectively. Chongqing has the highest delay index of 2.057, while the average speed of vehicles traveling is only 24.22km/h, but this may also have a lot to do with the complex road conditions in Chongqing as a mountainous city, which is also considered to be a relatively special existence in the cities on the list.

The report also tallied the free-flow speeds of major cities, with Beijing having the highest free-flow speed among the mega-cities at 50.79km/h. So we've always thought that Beijing, as the capital city, was the most congested city in the country, but that's not the case in reality, which is a big contrast to what we're accustomed to thinking. Of course, this also shows that the system of traffic restriction and numbering system implemented in Beijing has really played a big role. And Beijing's congestion has improved dramatically.

In addition to this, the report also counted the situation of surface bus travel in major cities, and the bus travel happiness index, which is composed of factors such as bus operation efficiency, reliability and waiting time, showed that the top three happy cities among the 50 cities nationwide that accepted the statistics were Shijiazhuang, Ningbo and Tianjin. In other words, these cities are very convenient to travel by surface public transportation.

And the statistics also show that, from the overall situation of all the cities counted, the waiting time for surface buses are showing a downward trend, indicating that our cities are getting better and better at planning surface buses.

Additionally, the report also counted the waiting time for ground buses in some cities, with Lanzhou City having the shortest waiting time at 5.1min, Chengdu coming in second at 7.6min, and Chongqing coming in third at 8.2min. And Shenyang city has the longest waiting time among the cities counted, at 18.2min, so the efficiency of surface bus travel in Shenyang city may be lower, with a longer waiting time, less suitable for daily commuting.

Through the analysis of the above report, we can see that although there are still different degrees of congestion in major cities, but through reasonable planning and management, congestion is still a great possibility of easing, and with the birth of more and more diversified modes of travel, and more reasonable choice of mode of transportation, our traffic will become smoother and smoother.

This article was written by the author of Automotive Home, and does not represent the views of Automotive Home.