Palm Bay Commute Time Map & Patterns

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

You 10/21/26, 7:58 PM

How long is the round-trip commute in Palm Bay?

Map AI 10/21/26, 7:58 PM

Commute Time Burden in Palm Bay: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Palm Bay spend about 51 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 214 hours, about 8.9 full days, spent commuting. That is 7% more time on the road than the Florida average of 24.0 minutes each way, a difference of 1.7 minutes.

Palm Bay holds about 0.6% of Florida's population and accounts for roughly 0.6% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Palm Bay would save about 86 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,655 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)
Palm Bay	25.7 min	51.4 min	214 hrs/yr	$6,637	3,727
Florida	24.0 min	47.9 min	200 hrs/yr	$6,189	3,068
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.

Palm Bay Commute Map

On average, it takes 25.7 minutes to get to work in Palm Bay. That's 15% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 11.1% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Palm Bay

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in Palm Bay: 4.3 times less than the Florida average (0.1% vs 0.4%).

Commute Mode Trends in Palm Bay, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Palm Bay 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	Other	Bicycle	Public Transportation	Motorcycle	Taxi
2009	94.3%	2.4%	0.9%	1.0%	0.3%	0.4%	0.6%	0.0%
2010	94.0%	2.6%	1.0%	0.9%	0.6%	0.3%	0.7%	0.0%
2011	94.1%	2.4%	0.9%	1.1%	0.6%	0.3%	0.5%	0.0%
2012	94.3%	2.2%	0.9%	1.2%	0.5%	0.3%	0.5%	0.0%
2013	94.2%	2.6%	1.1%	0.9%	0.5%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%
2014	93.5%	3.1%	0.9%	1.0%	1.0%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%
2015	93.0%	3.7%	0.7%	1.2%	1.0%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%
2016	92.6%	4.5%	0.6%	0.9%	1.0%	0.2%	0.3%	0.0%
2017	91.8%	5.1%	0.5%	1.0%	1.2%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%
2018	91.3%	5.5%	0.3%	1.1%	1.4%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2019	91.6%	5.0%	0.4%	1.0%	1.2%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%
2020	92.9%	4.5%	0.3%	0.7%	0.8%	0.3%	0.4%	0.0%
2021	89.7%	6.4%	0.7%	0.9%	0.9%	1.0%	0.4%	0.0%
2022	88.1%	8.0%	0.7%	0.9%	0.6%	1.1%	0.5%	0.0%
2023	86.8%	9.6%	0.6%	0.8%	0.8%	1.0%	0.4%	0.0%
2024	85.6%	11.1%	0.8%	0.8%	0.7%	0.5%	0.4%	0.1%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share fell from 94.3% in 2009 to 85.6% in 2024, down 8.7 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 4 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Palm Bay: its share of workers rose from 2.4% in 2009 to 11.1% in 2024, up 8.7 percentage points. Most of that increase, 6.1 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in Palm Bay

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Palm Bay?

The bars show when commuters in Palm Bay 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 Florida for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM		5.1%
5:00-5:29 AM		3.1%
5:30-5:59 AM		3.9%
6:00-6:29 AM		11.8%
6:30-6:59 AM		12.0%
7:00-7:29 AM		15.6%
7:30-7:59 AM		11.8%
8:00-8:29 AM		9.5%
8:30-8:59 AM		3.5%
9:00-9:59 AM		5.9%
10:00-10:59 AM		3.4%
11:00-11:59 AM		0.9%
12:00-3:59 PM		7.3%
4:00-11:59 PM		6.3%

Palm Bay Florida Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Palm Bay is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 15.6% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.1% across Florida. Early starts are about as common as in Florida: 12.1% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 12.2% there. The morning rush looks much like Florida's: 48.9% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.7% 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 Palm Bay, 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 Palm Bay 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 Palm Bay next to Florida 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	Palm Bay	Florida	United States
2009	7:27 AM	7:41 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:28 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:27 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:27 AM	7:46 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:32 AM	7:47 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:36 AM	7:47 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:34 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:35 AM	7:46 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:35 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:34 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:28 AM	7:43 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:26 AM	7:43 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:24 AM	7:43 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:24 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:24 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:27 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Palm Bay were on the road by 7:27 AM, almost exactly the same as in 2009. Across Florida, meanwhile, the typical commuter now leaves 2 minutes later than in 2009. Commuters in Palm Bay now leave 11 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Palm Bay's commute time compare?

Metric	Palm Bay	Florida	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	25.7 min	24.0 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	06:30 AM – 06:59 AM	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	11.1%	15.7%	15.0%
Walked	0.8%	1.4%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.5%	1.2%	3.2%

The average commute time in Palm Bay is 25.7 minutes, longer than the 24.0 minutes in Florida.

0.5% commute by public transit, lower than the 1.2% in Florida. 0.8% commute by walking, lower than the 1.4% in Florida.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Palm Bay, FL Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

How Palm Bay, FL compares with the 1 cities closest to it.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Palm Bay, FL	126,086	25.7 min #2/2	11.1% #2/2	7:27 AM #1/2
West Melbourne, FL	23,344	20.5 min	16.6%	7:37 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Palm Bay, Florida.

Is commuting expensive in Palm Bay, Florida?

Commuters here spend an estimated 214 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $6,637 at a typical national wage. That's 7% more than the typical Florida commuter spends.

What time should you leave for work to avoid traffic in Palm Bay, Florida?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Palm Bay, Florida. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM also sees a secondary bump.