Little Rock Commute Time Map & Patterns

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

You 10/21/26, 7:47 PM

How much time do drivers in Little Rock spend on the road daily?

Map AI 10/21/26, 7:47 PM

Commute Time Burden in Little Rock: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Little Rock spend about 34 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 143 hours, about 5.9 full days, spent commuting. That is 8% less time on the road than the Arkansas average of 18.6 minutes each way, a difference of 1.5 minutes.

Little Rock holds about 6.3% of Arkansas's population but accounts for roughly 5.8% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Little Rock would save about 57 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,770 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)
Little Rock	17.1 min	34.3 min	143 hrs/yr	$4,425	3,212
Arkansas	18.6 min	37.2 min	155 hrs/yr	$4,807	912
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.

Little Rock Commute Map

On average, it takes 17.1 minutes to get to work in Little Rock. That's 24% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM, followed by 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 12.1% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Little Rock

Public transit is unusually common in Little Rock: 3.4 times more than the Arkansas average (0.9% vs 0.3%).

Commute Mode Trends in Little Rock, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Little Rock 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	Bicycle	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	93.1%	2.9%	1.7%	1.3%	0.6%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2010	93.3%	3.1%	1.6%	1.2%	0.6%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2011	93.4%	3.0%	1.7%	1.1%	0.5%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2012	94.0%	2.8%	1.5%	1.1%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2013	93.7%	2.7%	1.6%	1.1%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2014	93.8%	2.8%	1.5%	1.1%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2015	93.4%	2.8%	1.5%	1.2%	0.6%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%
2016	93.1%	2.9%	1.5%	1.3%	0.6%	0.2%	0.2%	0.2%
2017	92.3%	3.7%	1.7%	1.1%	0.6%	0.2%	0.2%	0.2%
2018	91.8%	4.0%	1.7%	0.9%	1.0%	0.2%	0.3%	0.1%
2019	91.2%	4.3%	1.9%	1.0%	1.0%	0.2%	0.3%	0.1%
2020	90.0%	5.8%	1.9%	0.8%	0.9%	0.2%	0.4%	0.1%
2021	88.2%	7.6%	1.9%	0.7%	1.0%	0.2%	0.3%	0.1%
2022	87.3%	8.6%	1.6%	0.9%	1.1%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%
2023	85.5%	10.6%	1.9%	1.0%	0.7%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%
2024	84.6%	12.1%	1.3%	0.9%	0.5%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2012 at 94.0%. Overall it fell from 93.1% in 2009 to 84.6% in 2024, down 8.5 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 10 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Little Rock: its share of workers rose from 2.9% in 2009 to 12.1% in 2024, up 9.2 percentage points. Most of that increase, 7.8 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in Little Rock

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Little Rock?

The bars show when commuters in Little Rock 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 Arkansas for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM		4.1%
5:00-5:29 AM		1.7%
5:30-5:59 AM		2.5%
6:00-6:29 AM		8.1%
6:30-6:59 AM		9.7%
7:00-7:29 AM		15.8%
7:30-7:59 AM		16.6%
8:00-8:29 AM		13.8%
8:30-8:59 AM		6.8%
9:00-9:59 AM		6.4%
10:00-10:59 AM		3.0%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.0%
12:00-3:59 PM		5.0%
4:00-11:59 PM		5.5%

Little Rock Arkansas Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Little Rock is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 16.6% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.9% across Arkansas. Early starts are less common than in Arkansas: 8.3% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.8% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Arkansas: 56.0% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 51.9% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (20.8%) 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 Little Rock, 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 Little Rock 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 Little Rock next to Arkansas 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	Little Rock	Arkansas	United States
2009	7:43 AM	7:28 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:41 AM	7:28 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:43 AM	7:28 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:44 AM	7:27 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:46 AM	7:27 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:47 AM	7:27 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:49 AM	7:27 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:48 AM	7:26 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:49 AM	7:26 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:47 AM	7:26 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:45 AM	7:26 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:44 AM	7:26 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:45 AM	7:26 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:44 AM	7:26 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:43 AM	7:26 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:45 AM	7:25 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Little Rock were on the road by 7:45 AM, 1 minute later than in 2009 (7:43 AM). That goes against the trend across Arkansas, where the typical commuter now leaves 3 minutes earlier than in 2009. Commuters in Little Rock now leave 7 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Little Rock's commute time compare?

Metric	Little Rock	Arkansas	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	17.1 min	18.6 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	12.1%	8.8%	15.0%
Walked	1.3%	1.4%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.9%	0.3%	3.2%

The average commute time in Little Rock is 17.1 minutes, shorter than the 18.6 minutes in Arkansas.

0.9% commute by public transit, higher than the 0.3% in Arkansas. 1.3% commute by walking, lower than the 1.4% in Arkansas.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Little Rock, Arkansas.

Is commuting expensive in Little Rock, Arkansas?

Commuters here spend an estimated 143 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $4,425 at a typical national wage. That's 8% less than the typical Arkansas commuter spends.

What time should you leave for work to avoid traffic in Little Rock, Arkansas?

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

Is public transportation a realistic commute option in Little Rock, Arkansas?

Public transit usage is notably higher here than typical: about 0.9% of commuters use it versus 0.3% in Arkansas, making it a realistic option for many workers.

How much time do residents in Little Rock, Arkansas save by working from home?

About 12.1% of workers here already work from home. Working from home just 2 days a week in Little Rock would save about 57 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,770 at the same national wage assumption used above.