Does one who travels on a populated road count as traveling alone?

Question : Yes.

Answer : Now, traveling alone in the present day is not considered traveling alone. On a populated road, for example, if a person travels in a single car on the road between al-Qasim and Riyadh, we do not say that this is traveling alone. Do you understand why? Because the road is busy, just as if he were walking in a street of the city. He is riding alone, but he is not traveling alone; the road is active. As for roads where there is no one, then the person is traveling alone. And the issue is subject to scholarly disagreement. Al-Bukhari (may Allah have mercy on him) in his Sahih leans toward the view that traveling alone is not disliked, and he points to the weakness of the hadith .