The Silicon city of India and the capital of Karnataka, Bengaluru, ranked second among the most traffic-congested cities of the world, according to location technology company Tom Tom, which ranks urban congestion worldwide.

The capital city of Karnataka has got the dubious distinction, next only to London, with a travel time of 29 minutes and 10 seconds to drive a distance of 10 kilometres in the year 2022.

While London has recorded a travel time of 36 minutes and 20 seconds to cover the same distance, Bengaluru has emerged as India’s most traffic-congested city, followed by Pune (ranked 6), New Delhi (34) and Mumbai (47).

TomTom Traffic Index assesses the cities around the world by their average travel time and provides free access to city-by-city information.

According to the report which arrived on Wednesday, the travel time in Bengaluru increased by 40 seconds in 2021. The report also highlighted that the worst day to travel through Bengaluru in 2022 was October 15, Saturday, when it took 33 minutes and 50 seconds to drive 10 kilometres. In 2019 the city was ranked the most traffic-congested city in the world.

The study took into account the time, cost and CO2 emission per mile driven and pointed out how long it took to complete a 10km (or 6-mile) trip within a city, for typical EV, petrol and diesel cars.

The study also found that Bengaluru ranks fourth in the number of hours lost, 129 hours, due to rush-hour traffic. Even with flexible working arrangements, option to work remotely, the time people lost in global cities to rush-hour traffic only increased over the past year, it said, pointing out that Dublin lost the most amount of time, with as much as 140 hours, due to traffic.

The cost of traffic jams on the driver’s wallet is also quite significant, the research said. While London topped the list with the highest CO2 emissions per driven mile during rush hour, Bengaluru ranked fifth.

The data also revealed that in 2022, out of the total 260 hours of travel time spent on an average in driving 10 km, 134 hours was spent on traffic congestion. The city also emitted a total of 1,009 kg of carbon dioxide in 2022, out of which 275kg was emitted due to traffic congestion for a distance of 10 km.

In fact, the data showed that Friday is the best time of the week to avoid driving because of the severity of traffic congestion. An average travel time over the week shows that on Fridays between 6 pm to 7 pm it takes 37 minutes, and 20 seconds to cover 10 km. Meanwhile, the average time spent on traffic increases every hour as the day progresses from morning to evening. To cover a distance of 10 km, it takes an average of 25 minutes at 8 am and 37 minutes by 6 pm. However, Fridays and Saturdays top the list of highest traffic congestion in a week, as per the data.

Dublin, which is Ireland’s capital, the Japanese town of Sapporo and Milan in Italy, rank third, fourth and fifth respectively, according to study.