Quality of roads may not be an obvious factor for including in an evalution of diffferent outsourcing locations, but after spending 2 hrs in Mumbai or Bangalore rush hour traffic, it becomes much more clear.  The poor state of road infrastructure has a direct impact on employee productivity and costs.

India, which ranks in the lower half, provides a practical example. Commutes, even in the relatively smaller cities such as Bangalore, are often 1.5 to 2 hours each way for employees. An employee's willingness to put in extra hours is severely impacted. In addition, many companies are forced to pay for employee transportation and operate fleets of buses or cars to help employees get back and forth to work.

The United States, Chile and Canada have the highest quality of roads scores. China is in the top half, but India and the Philippines are below the average. Several Eastern European countries including Romania, Poland, Ukraine and Bulgaria rank at the bottom.

The Global Competitive Index is published by the World Economic Forum in their annual Global Competitiveness Report. The index scores 133 economies from 0 to 7, with 7 being the best possible score. For the quality of roads index, survey respondents were asked "How would you assess roads in your country? (1 = extremely underdeveloped; 7 = extensive and efficient by international standards)"