George Town Ranks As The City With The Worst Traffic Jams In Malaysia
Only three cities in the Klang Valley made it to the top eight list of the most congested cities in the country.
By Yap Wan Xiang — 17 Jan 2025, 06:12 PM
George Town, Penang, has been ranked as the city with the worst traffic congestion in Malaysia, according to a study conducted by TomTom, a navigation and map technology company based in the Netherlands
The study revealed that a driver required an average of 26 minutes and 36 seconds to travel a distance of 10km in the city.
George Town has a congestion level of 40%, a metric TomTom used to illustrate how much more time a driver needs to complete a journey during traffic jams compared to free-flowing conditions.
"For example, a congestion level of 40 means that, on average, journey times across that area's road network were 40% greater than when traffic is free-flowing," said the tech company in its methodology note.
The city was also ranked as the 45th most congested in the world.
The study revealed that a driver in George Town who took a 10km round trip during peak hours on weekdays wasted 75 hours a year stuck in traffic.
Kota Bharu and Ipoh were identified as the second and third most congested cities in Malaysia, respectively
Kuala Lumpur, the country's capital city, was placed fifth, with drivers requiring an average of 17 minutes and 26 seconds to complete a 10km journey.
Below is the full breakdown of the top eight Malaysian cities with the worst traffic congestion:
The TomTom Traffic Index analysed 500 cities across 62 countries, using floating car data (FCD) as its research method
"Data is collected from four key sources: connected cars, mobile navigation applications, on-dashboard navigation devices (satnavs), and managed fleet telematics devices (black boxes).
"This provides the basis for our live and historic traffic speed estimations and is a powerful tool for making a precise estimate of total traffic volumes," stated TomTom.
The company noted that slow average speeds do not necessarily equate to traffic congestion.
For example, a driver in Amsterdam does not take the same time to drive 10km as someone in New York, due to different speed limits, road layouts, and infrastructure.
"[Congestion] is recognised as the difference between free-flow or optimal traffic conditions and actual travel time," read its methodology note.
