“My only complaint is traffic backups!” That’s what Mississippi-based leased owner operator Jay Hosty said on the CCJ What Drivers Want survey.
Though the U.S. has several major cities whose identities are synonymous with traffic congestion like New York, Los Angeles and Atlanta, among others, the nation ranks among the least congested countries across the globe, according to the annual TomTom Traffic Index.
In its analysis of global traffic trends and commuting behavior based on mobility data in 2025, the mapping and location technology company found that global congestion increased from 20% to 25% in 2025. The U.S. ranked 54th globally with an average congestion level of 19%, compared to the No. 1 ranked Colombia at nearly 50%.
“The relatively low national congestion level reflects the scale and capacity of the U.S. road network and faster average travel speeds and also the population density and urbanization of other countries,” noted the report, which measured congestion levels, average speeds and travel times per mile across the global road network.
The U.S. may trail behind many other countries, but Americans still wasted one week a year sitting in congestion in 2024, according to the INRIX Global Traffic Scorecard.
TomTom Traffic Index, Top 10 U.S. citiesTomTom
The top 10 most congested cities in the U.S., according to the TomTom Index, are Los Angeles (58.9%), Honolulu (50.5%), San Francisco (49.7%), New York (48.4%), Miami (46.8%), Chicago (46.1%), Seattle (44.9%), Atlanta (44.3%), Boston (42.1%) and Tampa (41.5%).
All but two cities experienced an increase in congestion in 2025 compared to the prior year. Atlanta had the largest increase at 4%, while New York remained unchanged, and Boston decreased.
“In 2025, commuting in the U.S. is no longer just about how many people are on the road – it’s about when they travel, where congestion concentrates, and how resilient the system is,” the report said. “New policies are reshaping traffic patterns in major cities, work-from-home norms continue to stretch and redistribute the traditional rush hour, and climate-driven disasters are increasingly testing the reliability of road networks.”
The American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) drills down even farther, identifying the most congested freight road networks based on extensive GPS data from commercial trucks. LA, Chicago and Atlanta also land on ATRI’s list.
ATRI’s 2025 ranking of the worst truck bottlenecks, which tracks congestion levels at more than 325 freight-critical locations across the country, highlighted I-95 at SR 4 in Fort Lee, New Jersey, as the worst truck bottleneck. Roadways in Houston, Nashville and Cincinnati also appear on the list.
Another trucker who answered CCJ’s What Drivers Want survey also noted “incessant congestion” as a complaint. According to the 2025 survey, 28% of drivers listed delays from traffic congestion as their biggest problem as a driver not related to their employer. Truck parking (41%) ranked at the top of their list, and detention time ranked third (23%) with 7% marking “other.”
But beyond driver frustration, traffic congestion costs trucking companies quite a bit of money.
Traffic congestion on U.S. highways decreased slightly in 2022, compared to 2021, but the cost of congestion increased by 15% year over year due to the rising costs of operating a truck, according to ATRI’s Cost of Congestion study released in December 2024. This record-high increase, which included $32.1 billion in fuel costs associated with over 6.4 billion gallons of wasted diesel fuel, added nearly $109 billion in costs to the trucking industry in 2022.
