Passengers within the UAE felt the effects of their traffic jams in the year 2023 having spent an extra of 8-33 hours stuck in traffic. According to the latest data from the Inrix, the increase in population and traffic in the country post-GDP boosted these times of travel.
Delays have been attributed to traffic jams as the major cause of this lost time in 2023 compared to the year 2022. For instance, drivers in Dubai testified to the fact that they spent 33hours stuck in traffic jams in the year 2023; it was 22hours in the year 2023; this was due to the rise in population of the emirate which stood at nearly a hundred thousand at the beginning of 2023.
“I must say that traffic has improved in 2023-2024, Well, it used to take one hour to get to Sheikh Zayed Road from Sharjah in the morning and 2 hours to get back home in the evening and these days it takes almost 1 ½ hour in the morning and bit more than 2 hours in the evening if you are going back home,” quoted a Sharjah based long standing resident, Anum.
| City | Lost hours in 2023 | Lost hours in 2022 |
| Dubai | 33 | 22 |
| Abu Dhabi | 20 | 12 |
| Umm Al Quwain | 15 | 2 |
| Al Ain | 9 | 11 |
| Fujairah | 8 | 6 |
Similar to the above findings, the data obtained from Dubai toll operator Salik also revealed the same results. By the end of 2022, Salik registered 3.7 MM vehicles and the figure rose to 4.0 MM by the end of 2023.
Abu Dhabi drivers wasted 20hrs stuck in traffic as did owners in Umm Al Quwain 15hrs, Al Ain 9hrs and Fujairah 8hrs. The population of the UAE capital also grew rapidly and for the first time exceeded the population of Dubai in 2024 and amounted to approximately 3.8 million.
Since the Covid-19 crisis, organizations of all industries in the UAE have embarked on recruitment exercises across all levels that have in turn contributed to an increase in population as well as traffic.
Thus, to overcome the problem of traffic jam in the UAE, a plan for air taxi transport system is in pipeline for next year apart from offering flying transport between Dubai and Abu Dhabi within half an hour. The study involved the comparison of 947 cities across the globe. Only the time required to get from the commuting neighborhoods to the principal employment zones within an urban area was considered when determining commute times.
Worldwide, New York took the first place in the Inrix Global Congestion Index 2023. Commuting time under the Traffic Scorecard, indicated that drivers spent 101 hours stuck in traffic in 2023, a slightly improved figure than 2022’s 105 hours. Economically, this was seen to have cost the urban area time equivalent of more than $9.1 billion.
Global traffic congestion persisted to increase in the year 2023. These statistics were received from 947 urban areas; in 78 per cent of them, delays have raised; in 19 per cent – they declined; and in 3 per cent – they did not change at all.
