Commuter times worsened in the Netherlands in 2024; Amsterdam had the most delays

People needed more time to commute to their destination last year than they did in 2023. The average travel time has increased. Navigational company TomTom has said that this is due to traffic jams and road works but also due to the lowering of maximum speeds. Company experts added that they expect the travel time to increase further in 2025 because fewer people work from home, and there will be more construction.

The travel time was the longest in Amsterdam. Drivers needed an average of 23 minutes to travel ten kilometers. That is an increase of 6 percent compared to 2023 and is also the most significant increase in the country.

TomTom believes that this is largely due to the maximum speed in the capital city being lowered from 50 to 30 kilometers per hour. A trip of ten kilometers takes an average of 20 minutes in Nijmegen and 19 minutes in The Hague. People in Amersfoort and Almere get to their destinations the fastest. The same length of drive takes them ten minutes.

In Groningen and Apeldoorn, it was the traffic jams that had the greatest effect on travel time. In both cities, traffic congestion caused 32 percent extra travel time compared to a trip without traffic jams.

The average travel time increased in 13 of the 17 cities that were researched. The drop was very small in Nijmegen, Apeldoorn, and Almere. Leiden was the only place with a noticeable decrease compared to 2023. The city’s travel time was 4.5 percent longer.

Amsterdam also experienced the “slowest” traffic day of 2024. A drive of ten kilometers on Friday, September 6, took an average of half an hour. Construction was ongoing on the Coentunnel and the Zeeburgerbruggen.

A trip of around the same length took 24 minutes in Groningen on Thursday, November 21, as a result of snow and slippery roads, which led to a code orange being issued. That was 91 percent longer than is usually the case, proportionally the largest additional travel time of the year.

TomTom added that traffic in the Netherlands is not high compared to other countries. Amsterdam is 136th in the world for the longest travel time. Nijmegen is in 211th, and The Hague is at 259th.

The city with the most delay in the world is Barranquilla in Colombia, where a drive of ten kilometers takes an average of 36 minutes. Kolkata, Bengaluru, and Pune in India follow with 35, 34 and 33 minutes respectively.

London is the busiest city in Europe, with an average travel time of 33 minutes for a ten-kilometer drive. The slowest day of the year was in Sapporo, Japan, on January 17. People took 48 minutes to drive ten kilometers.