Massive changes in the world of work as a result of the Corona crisis have led to a noticeable relief from traffic jams in many cities in Germany.

This emerges from an analysis of traffic patterns by the mapping specialist TomTom, which was published in Berlin on Wednesday.

The corona-related effect is also slowly decreasing.

When evaluating the traffic figures, there were strong regional differences: while a reduction in the level of traffic jams of 21 percentage points was measured in Düsseldorf, a drop of only 5 percentage points was recorded in Leipzig.

According to the study, the level of traffic jams in Berlin during the evening rush hour was even at or above the level of 2019 from the second half of the year.

For the "TomTom Traffic Index" for 2021, the data from smartphones and built-in navigation systems were evaluated.

It is estimated that every seventh automobile in Germany was involved in data collection.

Hamburg is the traffic jam capital

In all 27 German cities that were examined, car traffic flowed at least as well or better on a daily average than in 2019. However, the difference to the last year before the pandemic has shrunk.

Compared to 2020, the loss of time for drivers is already increasing noticeably in many places.

Only in five German cities - Kiel, Bremen, Karlsruhe, Düsseldorf and Mönchengladbach - was the traffic jam level in 2021 below the value from 2020.

The German traffic jam capital was Hamburg again (31 percent, up 2 percentage points), followed by Wiesbaden, Berlin, Aachen, Nuremberg, Munich and Kassel.

Dresden, Stuttgart and Cologne complete the top 10 list of cities in Germany where drivers lose the most time due to traffic delays.

The percentage calculated by TomTom shows how much longer a journey takes as a result of the traffic jam.

In a press release, TomTom also addressed the global traffic volume.

Accordingly, the traffic load in 2021 decreased by 10 percent compared to 2019.

However, the world's busiest cities deviate from this trend.

In Istanbul (plus 13 percent), Moscow (plus 3 percent) and Kiev (plus 6 percent), the volume increased compared to 2019.