Motorists in South Africa spend an average of ten working days a year sitting in congested traffic or an average of 13 minutes of each hour of peak-time commuting, but smart, connected devices can help people to choose the most efficient routes daily to halve this delay, says TomTom South Africa country manager Daan Henderickx.

These are some of the conclusions drawn from TomTom South Africa’s traffic index, which used the company’s data to determine the congestion levels at different times of day during the whole year on 95 000 km of main, highway and secondary roads across the six largest South African cities and linking roads.

“At least once a week, on average, TomTom navigation devices will present drivers in South African cities with alternative routes to take to their destination, owing to congestion on roads.

“During a significantly congested day in Johannesburg in December 2012, when there were more than a hundred separate traffic incidents, delays on most routes averaged about an hour, even on alternative and secondary routes. However, TomTom users were able to decide whether to delay the start of their journeys to avoid wasting time in traffic, owing to the information available to them. This is a powerful tool to reduce unproductive time spent in traffic,” says Henderickx.

However, planning the most efficient route requires constant visibility and navigation systems must propose viable alternatives routes to drivers at key decision moments during their journeys to reduce delays.

“While many people believe they know their local roads, they cannot know what is happening on all routes. A smart navigation system uses near-real-time measurements from cars on these routes and calculates the delays compared to measurements on alternative routes to propose the most efficient routes. Such capability is even more important in cities that drivers do not know well, enabling them to reach their destinations in other cities efficiently.

“South Africans can also reduce their travel times by using highways, as a significant finding of the index is that drivers taking secondary roads as alternative routes often increase their travel time by up to 50%, compared with the 30% delay if they remain on the highway. Such unintended delays are removed by using a connected navigation device,” highlights Henderickx.

Further, by diverting traffic away from congested areas, congestions will also ease more rapidly, reducing overall congestion on roads.

“By introducing connected smart navigation devices in all vehicles, average congestion can be eased in cities,” he emphasises.

TomTom South Africa invites people to use its traffic website, which displays the same information used by its navigation devices, before their journeys to determine the most efficient routes, concludes Henderickx.