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Hitachi

Social Innovation

The cost of congestion

Being stuck in traffic is rarely an enjoyable experience, but it causes more harm than just frayed nerves.

While congestion currently poses a huge challenge for society, changes are afoot which could reduce levels of congestion by over 20%.

Businesses and government are increasingly coming together to find innovative ways to get people moving around more quickly and easily.

These range from smart technologies that help people quickly find and pay for parking or hail them a cab, to big infrastructure projects making public transport the preferred choice in cities.

The below animation shows how much cities across Europe are currently losing to congestion and how this could be reduced through these innovations:

Reference: This is based on research into Social Innovation in Transport & Mobility by Frost & Sullivan in partnership with Hitachi.

The cost of congestion was based on GDP figures from the Brookings Institution, Global Metro Monitor 2014, converted into Euros at a rate of 1:1.12 (Source: Google Finance, 15 July 2016).