Salvador has one of the worst traffic problems in the world.

Bahia 247 - In the capital of Bahia, drivers spend an average of 40 extra minutes a day in traffic jams, totaling 152 hours in traffic per year. The worst day is Monday morning. In the afternoon, traffic is even worse on Fridays.

In 2016, the day with the worst traffic congestion was June 8th, a Wednesday.

But there is a consolation: traffic in the capital of Bahia has been worse. Drivers lost more time in traffic in 2014 than last year. Compared to last year's ranking (2015 measurement), the city showed a 3% decrease in time spent in congestion.

After Salvador, Recife (37%), Fortaleza (35%) and São Paulo (30%) follow. In the global ranking, Salvador is in the 28th worst position, just ahead of Rome, the capital of Italy.

Rio de Janeiro is the most congested city in Brazil. Residents of Rio can expect to spend an average of 47% more time stuck in traffic at any time of day, and up to 81% more during peak hours at the end of the day compared to situations with free-flowing traffic or no congestion – adding up to 164 extra hours of travel per year.

The data comes from the TomTom Traffic Index, which assesses traffic congestion in 390 cities across 48 countries on 6 continents – from Rome to Rio de Janeiro, from Singapore to San Francisco. It comprises 14 trillion data points, accumulated over nine years.

Traffic congestion has increased by approximately 13% worldwide since 2008. However, there are surprising differences between continents. While congestion in North America has increased by 17%, in Europe it has grown by only 2%.

This may be related to economic growth in North America and economic depression in the rest of Europe.

European data may be heavily influenced by southern European countries such as Italy (-7%) and Spain (-13%), where there have been marked reductions in traffic congestion over the past eight years.