Delhi traffic jams grew 12.6% in a year; Qutab Road and Chirag Delhi the worst

Traffic congestion in Delhi grew 12.6% in a year, with Qutab Road and Chirag Delhi among the worst bottlenecks, according to an analysis by a traffic management platform reported by The Hindu on 7 November.

On an average day in September 2026, congestion stretched over 2,708 km of the city’s roads, against 2,405 km in September 2025. Traffic was heaviest around 7 p.m. The analysis blamed four main causes: commercial activity along main roads, parking on the roadside, the movement of goods vehicles, and poorly designed junctions.

The festival season has made things worse. Laxmi Nagar, the Akshardham flyover and Ghazipur were among the areas with heavy jams in the Deepavali rush, Hindustan Times reported.

The bigger picture

Different measures give different pictures of Delhi’s traffic. A review by the Lieutenant-Governor’s office reported in mid-2026 that the length of congested road at the city’s worst spots had fallen to about 32 km between April and June, from about 48 km in January to March, after enforcement using artificial intelligence. Delhi Traffic Police have identified 62 congestion hotspots, and remedial work had been completed at only 30 of them by the middle of the year.

The new analysis covers the whole road network rather than a list of hotspots, which may explain why it shows congestion rising. Either way, the causes it lists are the familiar ones: shops and markets spilling onto main roads, cars parked on carriageways, and junctions built for far less traffic than they now carry.