Mumbai 2021's most stressful city to drive in: UK survey

Photo for representational purpose

A study by UK's premier car sharing company Hiyacar has found Mumbai to be 2021's most stressful city to drive in, around the world, among 36 other global cities researched.

The ranking was based on several factors, including the number of cars per capita, total number of vehicles in the city, severity of traffic congestion, quality of the roads, public transportation options, number of traffic accidents per year and the city density. These factors then received an overall score out of 10 (with 10 being the highest point of stress) to determine which cities topped the stress charts.

Despite having one of the world's busiest public transportation systems, Mumbai was ranked as the most stressful city to drive in with a score of 7.4. With 510 cars per km, and over 1,00,000 people every sq. km, the roads of India's largest city are very overcrowded. The city has eight types of public transportation facilities, but the sheer pressure of population density also puts Mumbai in the top spot for the most car accidents.

Paris came in second with a score of 6.4. The city of love and light has over 32 million cars which causes traffic congestion. While the quality of roads was among the best, limited public transport facilities compelled locals to get around in their own vehicles.

Lima, Peru's capital city, was ranked as the least stressful city to drive in. With a score of 2.1, Peruvians had the fewest traffic accidents within the city in the past years. Coming in just after Lima was one of China's most populated cities, Dongguan, which is well known for its used car sales.

"Growing population and personal car ownership is only going to exacerbate this issue in cities worldwide, however adopting car sharing in our day-to-day lives is an effective way to decrease the number of parked cars on our road and hopefully alleviate some of the factors causing stress for drivers," co-founder and CEO of Hiyacar Graeme Risby said.

"This augments what city activists and car drivers have been saying for a long time. For the elite class and govt officials, it's easier as they have drivers. The government needs to set up a high-powered committee which should include citizen representatives to review the situation and suggest remedial actions. It should go through the earlier High Power Committee report recommendations and find out how many of them have been implemented," senior transport expert with Mumbai Mobility Forum and Mumbai Vikas Samiti, AV Shenoy said.

Most stressful cities to drive in
>> Mumbai, India
>> Paris, France
>> Jakarta, Indonesia
>> Delhi, India
>> New York, United States

Least stressful cities to drive in
>> Lima, Peru
>> Dongguan, China
>> Hangzhou, China
>> Tianjin, China
>> Bogota, Columbia