The table illustrates the average number of hours of delay experienced per commuter each year in four different-sized cities from 1985 to 2015, with a prediction for 2025.
Overall, it is clear that commuters in larger cities consistently experienced more delays than those in smaller ones. While delays generally increased over time in all city types until 2015, the table predicts a slight decline or stabilization by 2025.
In 1985, commuters in small cities (<500,000) had only 7 hours of delay annually, which rose steadily to 27 hours by 2015, before falling slightly to a predicted 20 hours in 2025. Medium-sized cities (500,000-1 million) saw a more pronounced rise, from 9 hours in 1985 to a peak of 31 hours in 2005. After that, delays decreased slightly to 21 hours in 2015 and are expected to drop further to 15 hours by 2025.
In large cities (1-3 million), delays rose from 11 hours in 1985 to a peak of 42 hours in 2005, then declined to 36 in 2015, and are predicted to reduce further to 30 hours by 2025. Metropolises with over 3 million people experienced the highest delays throughout the period, starting at 19 hours in 1985, doubling to 60 hours by 2005, and then decreasing to 50 in 2015, with a further drop to 40 hours expected in 2025.