Luxembourgers stuck in traffic for 33 hours yearly
(sth) – Luxembourg residents on average spend nine minutes of their days in traffic jams, costing them up to 966 euros per year and giving the popular expression “time is money” a very literal meaning.
André Bauler, MP of the Democratic Party, asked Minister of Economy Etienne Schneider in a parliamentary question how much time and money was lost in the daily lives of Luxembourgers due to traffic jams. While there is no comprehensive study addressing this subject at the time, Schneider used data from STATEC and INRIX (global traffic data provider) to give some general answers.
According to STATEC, Luxembourg residents spend 90 minutes per day travelling from one point to the other, all means of transport considered. 37% of these 90 minutes are spent getting to work or getting home from work, but the study doesn't reveal how much of this time is spent in traffic jams.
33 hours of traffic jams per year
The INRIX data on the other hand reveals that Luxembourgers on average spend approximately 33 hours per year in traffic jams, putting Luxembourg in fourth place in Europe with only Germany (38 hours), the Netherlands (39) and Belgium (44) worse off. Breaking this down, the Ministry's calculation arrives at 9 minutes of being stuck in traffic per person per work day. Considering that the average person in Luxembourg earns 28 euros of gross salary per hour, this results in costs of 966 euros per person in one year and a total cost of 392 million euros for all of Luxembourg. According to the Ministry, this represents a bit less than 1% of GDP.
What this doesn't show, however, are the indirect costs related to lost time due to traffic. For employees as well as for employers and especially for companies that depend on the traffic situation, like freight services for example. The existing data also concentrates on Luxembourg residents, leaving border workers out of the equation.
In his answer, Minister Schneider is listing elements that would be needed to carry out a detailed and comprehensive study of Luxembourg's traffic situation, leaving open if the government is actually planning on going through with such a study.
