site.btaDrivers in Plovdiv Lose Most Time in Rush-Hour Traffic in Bulgaria: 107 Hours Annually

Drivers in Bulgaria’s largest cities lose between 50 and 100-plus hours annually due to congested traffic during rush hour, according to data published by traffic information providers TomTom and INRIX.

Traffic in the country is busiest in the second-largest city of Plovdiv. It takes an average of 27 minutes and 18 seconds to travel 16 kilometres in the 330,000-population city. Every year, drivers in Plovdiv lose around 107 hours (more than four days) due to congested traffic.

In the capital and largest city, Sofia (pop. 1.3 million), a distance of 16 km takes an average of 26 minutes and 29 seconds to travel, and the average time lost due to congested traffic is 104 hours annually.

A working person in Sofia or Plovdiv spends between 20 and 30 minutes in traffic every business day, or almost two working weeks a year, the data shows.

The seaside cities of Varna (pop. 320,000) and Burgas (pop. 190,000) come next in the national ranking, with drivers losing, respectively, 80 hours and 54 hours annually because of congested traffic.

In Sofia, traffic is busiest between 7 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. and between 4:30 p.m. and 7 p.m. In 2024, traffic in the Bulgarian capital was worst on November 29. In Plovdiv, peak times are between 7:30 a.m. and 9:30 a.m. and between 4 p.m. and 6:30 p.m., and the day with the worst traffic in 2024 was December 10. In the largest coastal cities, rush-hour intervals are shorter but still considerable. The worst-traffic day in Varna and Burgas in 2024 was April 30.

The analysis attributes traffic intensity to the rapid increase in the number of vehicles, low availability of bypasses, job concentration in limited areas, not very efficient public transport, lack of smart traffic control systems, and high dependence on private cars.

In the European ranking of congested city traffic, Plovdiv is in 17th place and Sofia is in 22nd, behind such cities as Marseille, Milan, Poznan and Budapest. Traffic congestion in Bucharest is a particularly serious problem as it costs the average driver about 150 hours annually. Athens is also among the top 10, and London is number one in terms of busy traffic.