Mobile Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Mobile, Alabama: how long it takes, when people leave home and how they get to work. Ask Map AI about any address.

You 10/21/26, 7:45 PM

What does a typical morning commute look like in Mobile?

Map AI 10/21/26, 7:45 PM

Commute Time Burden in Mobile: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Mobile spend about 42 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 175 hours, about 7.3 full days, spent commuting. That is 5% less time on the road than the Alabama average of 22.1 minutes each way, a difference of 1.2 minutes.

Mobile holds about 4.1% of Alabama's population but accounts for roughly 3.9% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Mobile would save about 70 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,165 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)
Mobile	20.9 min	41.9 min	175 hrs/yr	$5,412	3,433
Alabama	22.1 min	44.3 min	184 hrs/yr	$5,717	1,193
United States	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.

Mobile Commute Map

On average, it takes 20.9 minutes to get to work in Mobile. That's 7% 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 9.2% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Mobile

Commute Mode Trends in Mobile, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Mobile 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.

Share of workers aged 16 and over, by ACS 5-year release year. Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Public Transportation	Other	Taxi	Bicycle	Motorcycle
2009	94.6%	2.4%	1.4%	0.7%	0.5%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%
2010	94.7%	2.5%	1.4%	0.7%	0.5%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%
2011	94.6%	2.8%	1.3%	0.7%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%
2012	94.4%	2.9%	1.2%	0.7%	0.5%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2013	94.1%	3.5%	1.1%	0.8%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2014	94.0%	3.5%	1.1%	0.8%	0.5%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2015	93.7%	3.8%	1.0%	0.7%	0.6%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2016	93.5%	3.7%	1.2%	0.7%	0.7%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2017	93.2%	3.8%	1.3%	0.7%	0.7%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2018	93.0%	4.0%	1.3%	0.7%	0.8%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2019	92.4%	4.4%	1.3%	0.7%	0.8%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2020	92.0%	4.8%	1.3%	0.8%	0.8%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2021	91.1%	6.0%	1.1%	0.7%	0.7%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%
2022	90.4%	6.7%	1.2%	0.5%	0.7%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%
2023	89.0%	8.1%	1.3%	0.6%	0.7%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%
2024	87.9%	9.2%	1.4%	0.6%	0.5%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2010 at 94.7%. Overall it fell from 94.6% in 2009 to 87.9% in 2024, down 6.7 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 14 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Mobile: its share of workers rose from 2.4% in 2009 to 9.2% in 2024, up 6.8 percentage points. Most of that increase, 4.8 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in Mobile

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Mobile?

The bars show when commuters in Mobile 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 Alabama for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM		6.0%
5:00-5:29 AM		4.7%
5:30-5:59 AM		6.1%
6:00-6:29 AM		10.3%
6:30-6:59 AM		10.6%
7:00-7:29 AM		14.3%
7:30-7:59 AM		12.9%
8:00-8:29 AM		7.5%
8:30-8:59 AM		4.0%
9:00-9:59 AM		5.3%
10:00-10:59 AM		3.3%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.4%
12:00-3:59 PM		7.3%
4:00-11:59 PM		6.4%

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

The busiest time to head out in Mobile is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 14.3% of commuters leave home, compared with 16.8% across Alabama. Early starts are less common than in Alabama: 16.8% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 17.9% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Alabama: 45.2% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 48.6% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (23.7%) 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 Mobile, 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 Mobile 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 Mobile next to Alabama and 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.

Median time commuters leave home, by ACS 5-year release year. Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Mobile	Alabama	United States
2009	7:31 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:31 AM	7:20 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:30 AM	7:20 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:29 AM	7:20 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:29 AM	7:21 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:28 AM	7:21 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:28 AM	7:21 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:27 AM	7:21 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:27 AM	7:21 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:27 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:27 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:26 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:26 AM	7:21 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:25 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:25 AM	7:20 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:26 AM	7:19 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Mobile were on the road by 7:26 AM, 5 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:31 AM). Across Alabama, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Mobile now leave 12 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Mobile's commute time compare?

Metric	Mobile	Alabama	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	20.9 min	22.1 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	9.2%	8.8%	15.0%
Walked	1.4%	1.1%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.6%	0.3%	3.2%

The average commute time in Mobile is 20.9 minutes, shorter than the 22.1 minutes in Alabama.

0.6% commute by public transit, higher than the 0.3% in Alabama. 1.4% commute by walking, higher than the 1.1% in Alabama.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Mobile, Alabama.

How much does the average commute cost workers in Mobile, Alabama?

Commuters here spend an estimated 175 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $5,412 at a typical national wage. That's 5% less than the typical Alabama commuter spends.

When is rush hour worst in Mobile, Alabama?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Mobile, Alabama. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM also sees a secondary bump.