Canada's Most Congested Cities: An Overview for Students in Transport Dispatcher Courses

Dispatching trucks on Canadian roads means knowing the work environment that your drivers operate in. Canada is a huge and diverse country, and its roads can be massively diverse too, ranging from open highways to congested city streets.
Contending with congestion is always trickier in Canadian cities, where volume levels, one-off incidents, and outside factors can influence traffic fluidity in different ways on any given day. However, experienced dispatchers know that during rush hour, some Canadian cities can become especially tricky to travel through. Avoiding that traffic, or planning routes around rush hour, can make a big difference for dispatchers looking to keep company operations efficient.
Which Canadian cities are the worst of the bunch? Read on to find out!

Grads of Transport Dispatcher Courses Know Montreal Is a Canadian Congestion Superstar

Put simply, certain Canadian cities are much more congested than others. Dispatchers working for a Montreal-based company, for example, work in a distinct congestion capital. A recent study ranked this city as the worst in Canada when it comes to congestion. In addition, Montreal also secured the spot for 23rd most congested of 1,064 cities studied internationally.

Experienced dispatches are well aware of the level of congestion problems the city faces on a daily basis, an issue stemming from the city’s island geography, which creates major bridge bottlenecks that in turn are compounded by aging infrastructure and constantly shifting repair work.

Dispatchers Know Toronto Isn’t Far Behind

Toronto, Canada’s largest city, is the next most challenging environment for a dispatcher according to the same study. Packed along the shores of Lake Ontario, major congestion in Toronto is a substantial factor on numerous cross-city arteries, including the 400 and 401.

Dispatching effectively means examining all available data, including statistics, after your transport operation specialist training. This information can break down in surprising ways across Canadian cities. Take St. John’s in Newfoundland, for example, which features a population of only 178,000 and far less drivers than Toronto. Despite having substantially less vehicles on the roads, the city’s drivers have an average of 19 per cent of driving time taken up in congestion.
As a result, St. John’s features a higher overall percentage of driving time spent in congestion compared to Toronto, yet Toronto is ranked as an overall worse city than St. John’s for getting from point A to point B because Toronto drivers simply have to spend more time in their vehicles to complete their journeys. These key insights can help dispatchers better plan routes and keep drivers from getting caught in traffic. In addition to Montreal and Toronto, other major traffic hot spots are spread out across the nation, with St. John’s, Ottawa, and Vancouver rounding out the top five most congested urban zones in Canada.

Become a Transport Dispatcher and Learn to Overcome the Worst Traffic

When you become a transport dispatcher, you will learn to employ both your experience and incoming live data in order to achieve the best outcome for the vehicles you are dispatching. Rapidly rerouting, juggling deliveries, and spotting shortcuts will be an important part of your skill set.
Retaining a strong overview of congestion-prone zones and the capability to guide your drivers through these problem areas is a skill that will be an asset to any dispatcher. In addition, your ability to react to live information, such as an unexpected lane closure, or worsening weather exacerbating a delay, is all part of the process.

With training and experience, a dispatcher will know which areas to try to avoid, the influence the time of day will have, and which areas simply have to be routed through and taken into account in terms of time and fuel expended. It’s an interesting challenge, and one that makes a career in dispatching so rewarding.
Do you want a rewarding career as an effective transportation dispatcher?
It’s never been easier to complete transport operation specialist training through CATI!