Deserted streets with, as the only survivors of usually dense urban traffic, a few buses, taxis or VTC driving smoothly.
The picture, unimaginable a few months ago, was however the one that Parisians witnessed in full confinement, from mid-March to mid-May last year.
The results of the 2021 edition of the global TomTom Traffic Index study, which we publish exclusively, allow us to precisely document the effects of the pandemic on this drastic drop in road traffic and the traffic jams it generates in the main agglomerations.
And on reading the document, the Covid effect is measured well beyond the sole periods of confinement imposed to deal with the pandemic.
A world where everything is rolling?
Based on data collected from navigation systems installed in some 600 million vehicles in 57 countries around the world, the TomTom Traffic Index shows that the level of congestion has decreased in 387 cities of the 416 cities covered by the survey, by 26% on average during peak hours, to increase only slightly in only 13 of them.
"This is a first whereas in ten years and since we carried out this study, the level of traffic jams has continued to increase all over the world," notes Vincent Martinier, Marketing Director of TomTom France.
The only ones that will experience an increase in 2020 are mainly those whose countries, Taiwan or New Zealand for example, have succeeded in controlling the epidemic and have not instituted containment measures.
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Paris, king of traffic jams
In 2020, the most congested city in the world is Moscow, with a congestion index of 55%, corresponding to the extra time spent driving compared to smooth traffic.
In France, and unsurprisingly, Paris remains the tricolor champion of caps and continues to truster first place in the French charts with an index of 32% (-7 points compared to 2019), ahead of Marseille, Bordeaux and Grenoble.
Containment and teleworking
Also in the capital, the fall in car traffic was obviously very strong during March to May during the first confinement.
The average congestion rate, for the week of March 16 to 22 alone, plummeted 65%.
In January, the level of Parisian traffic jams, again according to the congestion index, reached 45% due to strikes in transport (+ 32% compared to January 2019), and fell to only 3% in April (-92% compared to April 2019), at the height of containment.
"Parisians, like the inhabitants of large French cities, have started to telework on a massive scale for some, others have shown more flexibility in their commuting times between home and work, avoiding rush hours", explains Vincent. Martinier.
The bike effect
New ways of getting to work have also developed, during confinement ... but also after.
To the car and public transport, many city dwellers have preferred cycling, walking or even scootering.
They, it seems, persevere in their choices long after the period of duress.
If the congestion index for the month of June goes up to 31%, it does not reach that observed during the same month the previous year (42%) and validates the hypothesis that many Parisians have not taken the wheel again. after the first confinement.
"This Covid crisis served as a full-scale laboratory to experiment with new forms of displacement which we have been talking about for decades and which were struggling to develop," continues Vincent Martinier.
The whole question is whether these new habits will continue in the months and years to come, when the restrictions will be definitively lifted.
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October 29, black day
It doesn't take much for old habits to come back, and traffic jams with them.
The day of October 29 is illustrated in a very special way and won the title of the most bottled day of the year in France.
A record of 2,100 km of traffic jams, according to precise surveys from TomTom on the entire road network, was crossed in Ile-de-France that day and 23 of the 25 main French cities suffered the same phenomenon.
The reason ?
A rush towards the countryside and roads taken by storm from the afternoon while, the same evening, from midnight, the second confinement began, announced the day before by the President of the Republic Emmanuel Macron.
