{"id":90923,"date":"2025-12-05T15:44:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T15:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/?p=90923"},"modified":"2025-12-21T06:14:42","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T06:14:42","slug":"outlier-137-gridlock-traffic-jams-missing-electricity-school-performance-and-land-ownership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/outliereditor.co.za\/index.php\/2025\/12\/05\/outlier-137-gridlock-traffic-jams-missing-electricity-school-performance-and-land-ownership\/","title":{"rendered":"Outlier #137: Traffic jams, missing electricity, school performance and land ownership"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\ud83d\ude97 Gridlock<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Cape Town retains its top-ten ranking among the cities of the world with the worst traffic congestion. Every year, Inrix, a traffic management company, releases data based on its platform about the cities with the worst traffic jams. The data now covers 36 countries and more than 900 cities. Africa is mostly unrepresented in the data, leaving South Africa as a lone representative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Istanbul retains its unenviable position as the most congested city, with an estimated 118 hours lost to traffic delays by drivers on average in 2025. This is almost 30% up on the two years ago. The last time I was in Istanbul I was on a bus stuck in traffic. Some of our group got off the bus to walk and arrived back at the hotel long before the bus did. So it\u2019s easy to understand why Istanbul tops the list. It\u2019s one of my favourite cities but the traffic!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cape Town is another lovely city with a bad traffic problem. Traffic delays in the city are reportedly 16% up on 2023 but just 2% up on 2024. I have only missed a plane once and that was in Cape Town because of traffic, despite leaving for the airport hours ahead of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The only cities in the top 10 where traffic delays are reducing are London (down 10% on 2024), Paris (-7%) and Los Angeles (-1%).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\ud83d\udcda Education<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Girls are much more likely than boys to reach reading benchmarks set for grades 1,2 and 3, a survey by the Department of Basic Education found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the Funda Uphumelele National Survey, 44% of the girls met or exceeded the reading benchmarks compared with 27% of the boys. At the other end of the scale, 19% of boys scored zero for the reading assessments, compared with 10% of girls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In next week\u2019s newsletter, we will publish a more detailed report of the reading survey findings, which we did with the support of the Henry Nxumalo Foundation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\ud83d\udc7e Cyber threats<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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South Africa is not immune to cybercrime. Interpol\u2019s 2025 Africa Cyberthreat Assessment shows that South Africa recorded the second-highest number of ransomware detections on the continent in 2024, behind Egypt. While these numbers are small compared to the United States, which saw more than a million ransomware attacks in 2025, according to Trend Micro, they pose serious risks at home. Ransomware attacks can disrupt critical infrastructure, impose heavy financial losses, and erode trust in affected institutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2023, South Africa\u2019s Department of Defence lost 1.6TB of data to the ransomware group Snatch. And the threat is evolving. Trend Micro predicts that by 2026, \u201cransomware will evolve into AI-driven, fully automated operations that scan, exploit, and extort with minimal human input.\u201d This will make previously secure systems more vulnerable: supply chains, open-source components, and AI-enabled workflows could become key entry points. Attackers are also expected to move beyond simply encrypting data toward \u201cintelligent data exploitation,\u201d using AI to identify and target victims\u2019 most sensitive information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n