Alabama Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Alabama: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Alabama spend about 44 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 184 hours, about 7.7 full days, spent commuting. That is 1% less time on the road than the US average of 22.4 minutes each way, a difference of 0.3 minutes.

Alabama holds about 1.5% of US's population and accounts for roughly 1.5% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Alabama would save about 74 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,287 at the same national wage assumption used above.

Area	One-Way Commute	Daily Round-Trip	Yearly Time Spent	Estimated Yearly Cost	Local Road Traffic (VPD)
Alabama	22.1 min	44.3 min	184 hrs/yr	$5,717	1,193
US	22.4 min	44.8 min	187 hrs/yr	$5,790	1,355

The estimated yearly cost applies a single national rule of thumb (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics average hourly earnings), not a measurement of wages in this area - treat it as a rough estimate, not a paycheck figure. Local road traffic counts, vehicles per day on non-highway roads, come from proprietary Ticon and TrafficZoom data.

Commute Time Map: Alabama Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 22.1 minutes to get to work in Alabama. That's 1% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 8.8% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Alabama

• Car: 88.6%
• Worked at Home: 8.8%
• Walked: 1.1%
• Other: 0.8%
• Public Transportation: 0.3% unusually low
• Motorcycle: 0.1%
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Public transit is unusually rare in Alabama: 10.9 times less than the US average (0.3% vs 3.2%).

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in Alabama: 3.0 times less than the US average (0.1% vs 0.3%).

Biking is unusually rare in Alabama: 5.3 times less than the US average (0.1% vs 0.4%).

Commute Mode Trends in Alabama, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Alabama get to work, as a share of all workers aged 16 and over, across 16 U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) releases from 2009 to 2024. Each release is a 5-year estimate: the 2024 figures cover surveys taken from 2020 to 2024. Because neighboring releases share most of their survey years, the lines move gradually, and a sudden change such as the rise of remote work in 2020 spreads across several releases. Hover over or tap a line to highlight it, and use the legend to show or hide a mode. Driving starts hidden so the smaller modes stay readable.

• Car
• Worked at Home
• Walked
• Other
• Public Transportation
• Taxi
• Motorcycle
• Bicycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	94.7%	2.4%	1.3%	0.8%	0.5%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2010	94.7%	2.5%	1.3%	0.7%	0.5%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2011	94.7%	2.6%	1.2%	0.7%	0.5%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2012	94.7%	2.6%	1.2%	0.7%	0.4%	0.0%	0.2%	0.1%
2013	94.7%	2.6%	1.2%	0.7%	0.5%	0.0%	0.2%	0.1%
2014	94.7%	2.7%	1.1%	0.7%	0.5%	0.0%	0.2%	0.1%
2015	94.6%	2.8%	1.1%	0.7%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2016	94.5%	2.9%	1.1%	0.8%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2017	94.4%	3.1%	1.1%	0.7%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2018	94.3%	3.3%	1.1%	0.7%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2019	94.2%	3.3%	1.1%	0.7%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2020	93.2%	4.4%	1.1%	0.7%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2021	92.0%	5.6%	1.1%	0.7%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2022	90.9%	6.7%	1.1%	0.8%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2023	89.7%	7.8%	1.1%	0.8%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2024	88.6%	8.8%	1.1%	0.8%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share fell from 94.7% in 2009 to 88.6% in 2024, down 6.1 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 10 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Alabama: its share of workers rose from 2.4% in 2009 to 8.8% in 2024, up 6.4 percentage points. Most of that increase, 5.5 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in Alabama

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Alabama?

The bars show when commuters in Alabama leave home for work, as a share of everyone who commutes (people who work from home are not counted), from the 2024 ACS 5-year estimates. The thin violet marks show the U.S. for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Alabama6.8% The U.S.5.5%	6.8%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Alabama5.1% The U.S.4.0%	5.1%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Alabama5.9% The U.S.4.9%	5.9%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Alabama9.9% The U.S.8.7%	9.9%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Alabama11.3% The U.S.9.4%	11.3%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Alabama16.8% The U.S.14.4%	16.8%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Alabama11.8% The U.S.11.9%	11.8%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Alabama8.6% The U.S.11.5%	8.6%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Alabama3.5% The U.S.5.5%	3.5%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Alabama4.6% The U.S.6.8%	4.6%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Alabama2.2% The U.S.3.1%	2.2%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Alabama1.0% The U.S.1.5%	1.0%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Alabama6.3% The U.S.6.8%	6.3%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Alabama6.2% The U.S.6.1%	6.2%

Alabama The U.S. Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Alabama is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 16.8% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.4% across the U.S.. Early starts are more common than in the U.S.: 17.9% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.4% there. The morning rush looks much like the U.S.'s: 48.6% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.1% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (20.2%) leave at 9 AM or later, which usually points to shift work, flexible hours or part-time jobs.

When people leave matters as much as how far they go. Rush-hour traffic shrinks how much ground a 20-minute trip covers, so a trade area drawn as a simple circle often takes in neighborhoods that customers or staff would never drive from and misses others that are an easy trip. A drive-time zone, also called an isochrone, outlines every place within a set number of minutes of an address, which makes it the more honest way to size a store's catchment, a hiring area or the commute from a new home.

See it for yourself on the interactive map: click any spot in Alabama, pick a 5, 10, 15 or 30-minute drive and see the local demographics of the people who live within that exact drive time.

Is Alabama Waking Up Earlier? Typical Departure Time, 2009-2024

Each line follows the typical (median) departure time: the moment by which half of commuters have already left home. Higher on the chart means a later start. Setting Alabama next to the U.S. shows whether local mornings are drifting earlier or later than everyone else's. The figures span 16 ACS 5-year releases, so changes build up gradually rather than jumping from one year to the next.

• Alabama
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Alabama	United States
2009	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:20 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:20 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:20 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:21 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:21 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:21 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:21 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:21 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:21 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:20 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:19 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Alabama were on the road by 7:19 AM, almost exactly the same as in 2009. Commuters in Alabama now leave 18 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). The 2024 release is the earliest typical start for Alabama in the whole series.

How does Alabama's commute time compare?

Metric	Alabama	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	22.1 min	22.4 min
Work From Home	8.8%	15.0%
Walked	1.1%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.3%	3.2%

The average commute time in Alabama is about the same as in US.

0.3% commute by public transit, lower than the 3.2% in US. 1.1% commute by walking, lower than the 2.4% in US.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau