Sapporo, Japan sets the record for the single, worst day of traffic in 2024

Imagine getting into your car for a commute as usual, only to find that traffic has ground to a complete halt and a simple journey takes not just twice as long, but many times longer than usual.

Many of us have experienced something like this and cities around the globe invest millions each year to try and prevent it from happening, but sometimes nothing can be done. As was the case when residents of Sapporo, Japan, conclusively experienced the single worst day of traffic, based on total travel times.

Travel times reached 47 and a half minutes to travel just 10 km. This is more than double the time it would take to complete the same trip in free-flowing conditions, and it was this congested all day rather than just in rush hour, as is usually the case.

The data also shows that while some cities such as London and New York can be consistently bad for congestion, other locations can be hit by bad luck occasionally, when a series of factors combine in the worst way to bring traffic to a standstill.

It seems as if the weather was at least partly to blame. Weather reports on that day show light snow showers, mist and patches of fog, making conditions on the roads treacherous. Sapporo is no stranger to adverse weather conditions, back in 2022 it set records for the amount of snowfall within 24 hours — 60 cm fell on the city, which brought cars, bikes, trains and pedestrians to a standstill.

January is typically a cold month in Sapporo, the time of year that many go skiing and snowboarding in the region. There is even a Snow Festival — where artists sculpt and construct intricate works out of snow — which took place a couple of weeks after the notorious bad traffic day in January 2024.

As enchanting as this winter wonderland is, roads are prone to icing over at this time of year, and regular snowfall can cause issues for visibility in the Hokkaido city.

We may think that something uniquely catastrophic needs to happen on the roads for traffic to grind to a halt — like when a piece of roadwork machinery broke down on Orwell Bridge in Ipswich, in December 2023. Hanging over the edge and obstructing both lanes of the highway, the bridge was forced to close.

With no alternatives, drivers had to crawl their way through narrow country lanes and the town center, neither of which are designed to handle the volume of traffic that bled into them. For most of that day, Ipswich was the very definition of gridlock. Many hours later, the bridge reopened and many more hours after that traffic finally returned to normal levels. But, as we saw with Sapporo, sometimes all it takes is bad weather.

These two cities are the perfect example of how highly strung our road networks can be. Both Sapporo and Ipswich show that everything from bad weather to broken down vehicles can create ripples in traffic flow that wreak havoc when there are no alternatives.

When traffic is running smoothly and flowing freely without hold-ups, drivers can complete a 10 km trip in under 23 minutes. In typical traffic, it takes them 30 minutes and 30 seconds to do the same trip. Sapporo commuters lost 89 hours last year in rush hour traffic.

Sapporo ranks 28th globally, based on travel times, though other cities in Asia are much more frequently congested. India’s Kolkata for instance is ranked second most congested city in the world based on 2024 data, and drivers typically take 34 minutes and 33 seconds to drive a 10 km trip on an average day.

With a population of 1.9 million, Sapporo is the fifth-largest city in Japan, and by no means its worst when it comes to usual daily traffic. Journey times are slightly worse in Kyoto, Kumamoto, Fukuoka, Hiroshima and Sendai than they are in Sapporo, though capital city Tokyo with its highly developed public transportation system fares better with its 62nd place in the rankings.

In Tokyo, an average driver will spend just 27 minutes and 15 seconds on a 10 km journey across the city. All these cities, apart from Kumamoto, saw driver time in traffic increase or stay the same last year when compared with 2023 data. Kyoto was Japan’s most congested city last year. Drivers in the city famous for its Buddhist temples lost 95 hours to rush hour traffic congestion in 2023. In Kyoto, that typical 10 km journey takes an average of 33 minutes and 16 seconds.

Considering their population density, Japan’s cities do a good job of managing traffic. This is in part to well optimized infrastructure, heavy taxes on older vehicles and strict rules on private vehicle ownership, for example, before buying a car you have to prove that you have a parking space for it within 2 km of your house. But what can the country expect of the future?

Japan had a record number of visitors in 2024, with a tourism surge that meant more than three million tourists visited the country every month. Favorable exchange rates and perceived safety in Japan are factors that have been cited as drivers for the increased number of visitors — and tourism has boosted Japan’s economy — though the numbers inevitably put pressure on the existing infrastructure, including roads and public transportation networks.

In Sapporo, tourism GDP has grown faster than its overall city GDP, highlighting the importance of foreign visitors attracted by events such as the Snow Festival to boost its economy.

In line with other parts of Japan, Sapporo has an aging population. Part of the city’s 10-year vision includes a strategy for improving public transportation, as there has been a trend in recent years for people to opt for private cars instead of buses or trains, which goes against what has been seen in cities like Tokyo.

However, such measures will only go so far to prevent a recurrence of the January 17, deadlock. While the impact of big events such as concerts, sports finals and festivals on city traffic can be mitigated by effective urban planning measures, such as shuttle buses and temporary parking, unpredictable or extreme weather, it seems, still has the power to bring traffic to a standstill.

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