Jinan tops the list for second time. [Photo/IC]

East China's Jinan overtook Beijing to become the most congested city in the country in the first three months of 2016, according to a report.

The report, entitled An Analysis Report of Traffic in Major Chinese Cities in the First Quarter of 2016, was co-released on Wednesday by AutoNavi Software Co, a mobile mapping and navigation service, and the sustainable transport research institute set up by Tsinghua University and auto manufacturer Daimler AG.

It shows that Jinan, the capital city of East China's Shandong province, tops the list in traffic congestion, followed by Beijing, and Hangzhou, the capital city of East China's Zhejiang province. It is the second time that Jinan has been ranked number one after the third quarter of last year.

Shanghai took the 11th spot and Hong Kong 18th.

The ranking is based on a "delay index" calculated through analyzing data collected from devices installed on vehicles that can record their speed and location.

The index reading for Jinan was 2.097, 1.979 for Beijing, and 1.789 for Shanghai. An index reading of 2.0 indicates that a commuter spends twice as much time on a trip as on a normal day.

The traffic in most first-tier cities improved in the first quarter as many people went to their hometown in the Spring Festival holidays, the report shows.

In terms of speed, the average speed in rush hours in Jinan was slightly over 20 kilometers per hour.

Hong Kong performed well with a traffic speed of nearly 30 km per hour in rush hours thanks to its advanced transport infrastructure and high proportion of highway, according to an expert with AutoNavi Software Co.