According to the results of the latest TomTom Traffic Index, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo top the Americas ranking for the most congested cities.

Car ownership in Brazil has increased by 119% over the last decade making traffic congestion a serious issue in the country. The traditional responses to tackling congestion, such as building new roads or widening existing ones, are no longer proving to be effective in managing the higher congestion level. Reliable and accurate real-time traffic information is proven to be a successful and cost effective answer to managing congestion.

—Ralf-Peter Schäfer, Head of Traffic at TomTom

TomTom Traffic provides precise and up-to-date traffic information for highways, major roads and secondary roads using OpenLR location referencing in 33 countries in North America, Europe, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. The service includes congestion forecasting which indicates whether a jam is growing or dispersing, and estimates how long the delays will last.