Greater Manchester has been no stranger to setting records recently. From most productive region to most popular location for tech start ups, the city region has frequently found itself as the poster child for Northern regeneration in recent years, but there’ll be less celebration about the latest international hot list the city has found its way on to.
According to a new study from Ovoko, one of Europe’s largest online marketplaces for used car parts, Manchester has grabbed the unenvied eighth spot in a new ranking of the world’s worst cities for commuters – the only UK city to make the top 10.
Ovoko says it conducted comprehensive research to identify which cities around the world put the most pressure on daily commuters, and the study examined 31 major cities across the United States, United Kingdom, and European Union.
The analysis examined commuting stress across the 31 cities using multiple data sources. The seed list of cities was compiled from established stress and commuting studies from Stress.org, Compare the Market, Discover Cars, and Vivid Maps.
Key metrics included average one-way commute times and traffic data from Numbeo, while congestion levels and time lost in rush hours came from TomTom’s Traffic Index. The study calculated monthly fuel costs by combining daily commuting distances with average vehicle efficiency (7.2 L/100 km), local fuel prices, and 22 working days per month.
Each city received a composite stress score by normalising all data points between 0 and 1, averaging them, and scaling to 100. Higher scores indicate more time-consuming, costly, and stressful commuting conditions that negatively impact quality of life.
In Manchester’s defence, with an average one-way commute of 39.03 minutes its still some way behind the worst location, Los Angeles, with a 56.81-minute drive to work, and with an average of 94 hours lost to rush hour commuting annually it was one of only two cities in the top 10 to clock in at under 100 hours here, but it’s probably still fair to say Andy Burnham won’t be putting this one in his scrap book next time he’s plugging the city to an international trade delegation. Top tip here is don’t move to Dublin, where commuters typically lose 155 hours a year to rush hour traffic each year.
Kazimieras Urbonas, supplier excellence manager at Ovoko, said: “Commuting stress affects millions of people every single day, impacting both their wallets and wellbeing. Understanding these patterns better can help people make more informed decisions about where to live and work, while also highlighting the urgent need for better transport solutions.”
The the other cities to make the unwelcome top 10 were Bucharest, Budapest, Dublin, Athens, Brussels, Rome, Milan and Wroclaw. Check out the full stats here:
