We spend 20 extra days a year in traffic

Wellington has one of the worst morning commutes for a city of its size, but Auckland is still our most congested city.

Figures published by GPS navigation company TomTom show morning peakhour drivers in Wellington can spend 72 per cent more time stuck in jams than if the trip were in free-flowing traffic.

That amounts to an extra 20 working days a year – a 4 per cent increase from last year – with Wednesday being the busiest time of the week for both morning and evening commutes.

Auckland’s congestion has almost doubled since 2014, with commuters there spending an extra four working weeks sitting in their cars. The busiest time is Thursday evening.

Christchurch has seen the smallest increase in traffic congestion, of 3 per cent, meaning an extra 29 minutes of travel each day.

Dunedin has the largest increase in the country, with the worst time to travel being 3pm to 4pm on Fridays, when congestion extends the trip by 38 per cent.

The congestion-level percentage is calculated by working out the extra travel time a driver will experience compared with a free-flowing journey. By this measure, Wellington has the worst morning congestion in the country. National traffic congestion rose by 43 per cent in 2016, making New Zealand 2 percentage points worse than Australia.

Wellington City Council transport strategy and operations portfolio leader Chris Calvi-Freeman said he took the survey results with a grain of salt.

‘‘The 72 per cent extra time means traffic is flowing fine in the middle of the day ... If people have no choice but to commute in peak hours, or are foolish enough to drive in that time, they are going to be stuck in traffic.’’

In the coming months, the Let’s Get Wellington Moving group would be releasing a mix of possible transport solutions, he said.

‘‘One of the things we will do is look at our parking policies ... We need to get more people on public transport, on bicycles, or walking.

‘‘And one of the biggest drivers of commuting behaviour is availability of parking in the CBD.’’

TomTom data shows traffic congestion is up by 23 per cent globally since 2008, with the Oceania region recording the highest increase, at 36 per cent.

Phil Allen, of TomTom, said the traffic index was released every year to help drivers, cities and transport planners to understand traffic congestion trends but, most importantly, how to improve congestion globally.

‘‘We really want everybody to think about how they can lower the amount of time they waste in traffic every day, and to realise that we all need to play a part.

‘‘If even just 5 per cent of us changed our travel plans, we’d improve travel times on our major highways by up to 30 per cent.’’