Fox Business
Expand
Browse All Video
Watch Live

You're watching...

Decline in Traffic Congestion a Bad Sign for Economy?

Details

  • Description

    The correlation between traffic and the economy

  • Duration 3:12
  • Date

Clips

Also in this playlist...

Markets Now

Auto-advance: ON

Auto-advance
View All

Transcript

This transcript is automatically generated

And -- -- to -- traffic congestion in the United States dropped last year by 30%.

That is the largest decline since the country plunged into recession back in 2008 so the question is what does this tell us.

About the economy well joining us now is Bryant is Stanley president and CEO of in -- which.

Did this very interesting study of Brian thank you for joining us so okay traffic congestion down 30% last year what does that tell us about the economy but it's slowing down as well.

That's right and we -- very surprised by the findings this was after two years of an increase in traffic congestion we saw a decrease.

-- -- is obviously leading economic indicator represents people on the road driving around going to jobs in and buying things but frankly.

So what this indicates is that the high fuel prices are obviously having huge impact on traffic congestion in the economy will.

I know that must mean that less people going to work less deliveries less people shopping.

But more construction than usual now.

Well there was lot of construction during the stimulus program 20082009.

What we saw actually last year if you decrease in the total amount of construction.

So this is primarily driven by high fuel prices and obviously sagging employment market.

Is there a direct -- correlation in previous studies between.

Traffic congestion and how the economy's doing -- mean is it is a strong correlation there is a very strong correlation in fact traffic isn't early economic indicator.

In this study where we saw high fuel prices it led to decreases in overall congested markets like Los Angeles San Francisco -- New York.

The where traffic -- and fuel prices were down and actually led to an overall increase in traffic congestion.

-- -- -- So where the worst places because I'm gonna tell you it's north Jersey but it -- -- -- don't -- actually -- followed by Los Angeles and I have never -- York.

This has been so Honolulu Los Angeles San Francisco -- -- comes -- full or hot it was kind of Bridgeport.

We'll look at what we're looking at a we're looking at the average that commuters experienced -- stuck in traffic and factoring out the overall size of the succeed in sending the survey.

Disturbing -- -- and an analyst.

Very interesting OK so.

But -- -- did this study internationally as well also if you going overseas what areas should you avoid was about the traffic -- we look at more than a dozen different countries is the first global study Traficant donation what we saw actually is the United States is pretty low on the list.

Only four of the top thirty cities worldwide -- in the United States.

Italy for instance which is the worst country in Europe has three times the traffic and the United States -- those -- was alright very.

This thing.

This is -- they drive Vista because they can't.

They say and drink wine -- get in the car I don't blame them.

All right so but let me ask you this -- Brian -- there is is very serious side to this lost.

Economic.

You know productivity because of -- traffic construction.

Well turkeys even though traffic congestion went down -- still problem -- average -- spent forty hours stuck in traffic last year that the whole workweek.

Lost in terms of productivity in the worst city which is Honolulu people spend an average of sixty hours stuck in traffic.

Released the weather's nice and happy happy that we can say very interesting stuff right -- -- with -- -- CEO and president thank you for being thank you there.

Load More