Estimate the number of hours wasted in traffic each year.

 

Are we estimating for any specific region such as city or country or the entire world? -> Lets estimate for a busy city such as Bangalore

When we say traffic, are we mainly referring to road traffic and not air/rail/metro traffic because many times flights do not take off or land due to heavy air traffic or trains do not get the signal to move because of rail traffic congestion or some breakdown -> Road traffic

Can I assume hours wasted as the sum of the time when any one is travelling from one place to another and is unable to move because of traffic congestion? Considering times only when vehicles are completely at a halt -> Yes I will assume that mostly people waste time when they travel in the traffic peak hours of the morning from 8am-11am.

 

Main equation: Number of hours wasted in traffic each year = No. of hours wasted in traffic/day * 360 No. of hours wasted in traffic/day = Average number of people commuting daily by road * No. of hours wasted per day/person  Lets calculate the Average number of people commuting daily by road:Population of Bangalore ~ 14.4MLets assume life expectancy of 80 years and uniform population distribution across the age groups (if the final numbers are very off, we can increase the population of folks in the age group of 20-40years by a certain percentage) and folks above the age group of 5 years (children going to school) and below the age of 60 years mainly travel in the peak hours and waste time.So, population commuting daily = (55/80)*14.4 = 9.9M ~ 10M  Now, lets calculate the number of hours wasted per day/personChildren travel to school by school buses, personal vehicles or by public transport and adults of different classes tend to travel to their work destinations using public transport or personal vehicles. Irrespective of the mode of transport, they get stuck in traffic.Taking cues from my discussion with colleagues at work and with my appartment folks associated with different professions, on an average, people tend to travel ~ 15km daily one wayThough in the same traffic congestion, a 2-wheeler tends to navigate much faster than a 4-wheeler. The same comparison applies to a 4-wheeler and a bus. For simplicity purpose, I will not differentiate between different vehicle types.My office ~10km from home.During festivals such as Diwali, when traffic is bare minimum, it takes me ~25 minutes to reach office and on other usual days, it takes me around 50 minutes to reach office. So, I tend to spend around 20-25 min in traffic each way.10 km - 20min15km - 20*15/10 = 30 minOne way, an average person wastes 30 minutes in traffic. 2 ways, an average person wastes 30mins or 1 hour in traffic  Therefore, No. of hours wasted in traffic/day = 10M * 1 hour = 10M hours Number of hours wasted in traffic each year = 10M hours * 360 = 3600M hours or 3.6B hours