The Hague has the worst traffic jams in Netherlands, Amsterdam 2nd place

Nowhere in the Netherlands did drivers spend as much time on the road last year as in The Hague. Due to traffic, a 10-kilometer trip through the city took an average of 8 minutes longer than it would have without traffic. That’s a delay of 51 percent, according to calculations by navigation company TomTom.

The Hague has replaced Amsterdam as the “traffic jam capital” of the Netherlands in the company’s annual report. Amsterdam is in second place. The delays in The Hague are due in part to closures due to the NATO summit, but also to roadworks.

Amsterdam is the slowest city for cars in the country, mainly because of its 30-kilometer per hour speed limit. People average less than 23 kilometers per hour in the capital. In The Hague, it’s over 25 kilometers per hour, and in Nijmegen, over 28.

TomTom examined travel times in 17 Dutch cities. Evening rush hours were busier last year than in 2024, but morning rush hours went more smoothly. This is because workdays are becoming more flexible. For example, people might do some work at home for the first few hours before heading to the office. Traffic is then spread out. But between 5:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m., everyone returns home at the same time.

Only in Groningen did delays decrease significantly, by almost a quarter compared to 2024. This may be due to the completion of work on the southern ring road and the completion of the renovated Julianaplein interchange. This immediately resolved bottlenecks, according to the researchers.

In Arnhem and Nijmegen, delays decreased slightly, while in the other 14 municipalities, people spent longer on the road.

Compared to other countries, delays in the Netherlands are actually quite reasonable. The Hague is in 81st place in the world ranking. The world’s most traffic-jammed city is Mexico City, with a 76 percent delay, followed by Bengaluru in India. In the Colombian city of Barranquilla, drivers average 16.4 kilometers per hour.