Commuters in Toronto and Montreal may spend a lot of time in their cars, but a new survey shows they have a relatively stress-free commute compared with others.

The IBM Commuter Pain Index survey ranks the emotional and economic toll of commuting in 20 major cities around the world.

Toronto and Montreal were both a part of the survey with the latter finishing at the bottom of the list and Toronto finishing fifth from the bottom.

Mexico City topped the list with Shenzhen, Beijing, Nairobi and Johannesburg rounding out the top five. New York finished one point above Toronto.

"Commuting doesn't occur in a vacuum," said Naveen Lamba, IBM's global intelligent transportation expert, in a statement.

"A person's emotional response to the daily commute is coloured by many factors — pertaining both to traffic congestion as well as to other, unrelated, issues. This year's survey indicates drivers in cities around the world are much more unsettled and anxious compared with 2010."

The survey includes questions about commuting time, time spent in traffic, the price of gas, stress, anger and how traffic affects work.

Globally, 42 per cent of people say their stress level has increased and 35 per cent say they get angry because of traffic.

While 23 per cent of people in Toronto say congestion is better, 40 per cent are more stressed because of congestion.

IBM surveyed more than 8,000 people on six continents with the majority saying traffic has become worse in the last three years. It points out 40 per cent of commuters say improved public transit would help and the number of people taking transit is up in most places.

More people taking transit is a good thing because one expert says cities can't expect to solve the problem by building more roads.

"We can't simply build our way out of congestion no matter which city," said Vinodh Swaminathan, IBM's director of intelligent transportation systems, in a statement.

"In order to improve traffic flow and congestion, cities need to move beyond knowing and reacting; they have to find ways to anticipate and avoid situations that cause congestion that could turn the world into one giant parking lot."

(Read by Nelly Min. Nelly Min is a journalist at the China Daily Website.)