Why Egypt and South Africa, and not Uganda, rank among countries with world's worst traffic

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Egypt, Iran and South Africa are among the top 5 countries globally with the worst traffic conditions, according to the latest ranking by online database Numbeo.

Uganda or Kampala does not appear on the rankings because there is not enough data from the country's road users.

"We rely on self-reporting data, we need more contributors for Uganda. If there are enough contributors by July 2nd, we will include Uganda and Campala in our publication on that date," an official at Numbeo said in response to an inquiry.

Numbeo gathers user-contributed data about cities and countries worldwide. (click here to contribute data)

The ranking is based on a comparison of indices of time consumed in traffic due to job commute, estimation of time consumption dissatisfaction, carbon dioxide emission estimation in traffic and overall inefficiencies in the traffic system.

Relatedly, computer scientists at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore are working on an algorithm that can reduce traffic jams through intelligent routing. The program runs with the breakdown assumption, which is idea that at some point within a large traffic density, something (such as an accident) will probably happen.

The program’s task is to minimize the probability of such a traffic breakdown.

How the rankings are done:

Traffic Index is a composite index of time consumed in traffic due to job commute, estimation of time consumption dissatisfaction, CO2 consumption estimation in traffic and overall inefficiencies in the traffic system.

Time Index - is an average one way time needed to transport, in minutes.

Time Exp. Index - is an estimation of dissatisfaction due to long commute times. It assumes that the dissatisfaction of commute times increases exponentially with each minute after one way commute time is longer than 25 minutes.

Inefficiency Index - is an estimation of inefficiencies in the traffic, with high inefficiencies it assumes driving, long commute times, etc. It is meant to be more measurements of economies of scale in traffic.

CO2 Emission Index - is an estimation of CO2 consumption due to traffic time. Measurement unit is grams for the return trip. To calculate an average estimation of emission in grams for one way commute to work, divide this value with 2.