Atlanta Commute Time Map & Patterns

Help

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

You 9/24/26, 3:28 PM

Is the commute in Atlanta longer than the national average?

Map AI 9/24/26, 3:28 PM

Commute Time Burden in Atlanta: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Atlanta spend about 45 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 189 hours, about 7.9 full days, spent commuting. That is 4% less time on the road than the Georgia average of 23.6 minutes each way, a difference of 1.0 minutes.

Atlanta holds about 4.6% of Georgia's population but accounts for roughly 4.4% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Atlanta would save about 76 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,343 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)
Atlanta	22.7 min	45.3 min	189 hrs/yr	$5,857	3,617
Georgia	23.6 min	47.3 min	197 hrs/yr	$6,109	1,447
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.

Atlanta Commute Map

On average, it takes 22.7 minutes to get to work in Atlanta. That's 1% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM, followed by 09:00 AM – 09:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 29.8% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Atlanta

Driving is 28% less common in Atlanta than the Georgia average (57.6% vs 79.8%).

Walking is unusually common in Atlanta: 3.1 times more than the Georgia average (4.0% vs 1.3%).

Public transit is unusually common in Atlanta: 5.1 times more than the Georgia average (5.7% vs 1.1%).

Biking is unusually common in Atlanta: 4.8 times more than the Georgia average (0.7% vs 0.2%).

Atlanta stands out for active commuting: 4.7% of workers walk or bike to work, 3.3 times the Georgia average of 1.4%.

Commute Mode Trends in Atlanta, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Atlanta 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	Public Transportation	Walked	Other	Bicycle	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	75.5%	5.8%	12.3%	4.4%	1.0%	0.7%	0.2%	0.2%
2010	74.5%	6.3%	12.6%	4.6%	1.1%	0.7%	0.2%	0.1%
2011	74.9%	6.9%	11.4%	4.6%	1.1%	0.8%	0.1%	0.2%
2012	74.5%	7.1%	11.3%	4.9%	1.1%	0.8%	0.1%	0.2%
2013	75.6%	7.1%	10.2%	4.9%	0.9%	0.8%	0.2%	0.2%
2014	75.8%	7.3%	9.9%	4.9%	1.0%	0.8%	0.1%	0.2%
2015	75.7%	7.7%	9.8%	4.9%	0.8%	0.9%	0.1%	0.2%
2016	75.2%	7.7%	10.0%	4.9%	1.0%	0.9%	0.2%	0.2%
2017	75.2%	7.6%	10.2%	4.7%	1.0%	0.9%	0.3%	0.1%
2018	74.1%	7.8%	10.5%	4.8%	1.1%	1.0%	0.5%	0.1%
2019	73.4%	8.1%	10.4%	4.9%	1.3%	1.1%	0.6%	0.2%
2020	68.8%	12.8%	9.8%	4.9%	1.7%	1.1%	0.7%	0.2%
2021	64.7%	18.6%	8.6%	4.5%	1.8%	1.0%	0.7%	0.1%
2022	62.0%	23.2%	7.4%	4.2%	1.8%	0.8%	0.6%	0.0%
2023	59.9%	26.6%	6.3%	4.2%	1.8%	0.7%	0.4%	0.1%
2024	57.6%	29.8%	5.7%	4.0%	1.5%	0.7%	0.6%	0.1%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2014 at 75.8%. Overall it fell from 75.5% in 2009 to 57.6% in 2024, down 17.9 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 7 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Atlanta: its share of workers rose from 5.8% in 2009 to 29.8% in 2024, up 24.0 percentage points. Most of that increase, 21.7 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 12.3% to 5.7% of workers (down 6.6 percentage points).

Working from home overtook public transit to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2020 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Atlanta

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Atlanta?

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

12:00-4:59 AM		3.0%
5:00-5:29 AM		1.9%
5:30-5:59 AM		1.9%
6:00-6:29 AM		5.3%
6:30-6:59 AM		5.9%
7:00-7:29 AM		10.0%
7:30-7:59 AM		11.2%
8:00-8:29 AM		17.2%
8:30-8:59 AM		11.3%
9:00-9:59 AM		12.7%
10:00-10:59 AM		4.1%
11:00-11:59 AM		2.3%
12:00-3:59 PM		7.6%
4:00-11:59 PM		5.6%

Atlanta Georgia Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Atlanta is 8:00-8:29 AM, when 17.2% of commuters leave home, compared with 11.6% across Georgia. Early starts are less common than in Georgia: 6.8% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 13.8% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Georgia: 44.2% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.5% there. About 1 in 3 commuters (32.4%) 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 Atlanta, 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 Atlanta 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 Atlanta next to Georgia 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	Atlanta	Georgia	United States
2009	8:10 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2010	8:10 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2011	8:10 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2012	8:11 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	8:11 AM	7:37 AM	7:39 AM
2014	8:11 AM	7:37 AM	7:39 AM
2015	8:10 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2016	8:09 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2017	8:09 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2018	8:08 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2019	8:08 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2020	8:12 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2021	8:13 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2022	8:13 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2023	8:17 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2024	8:19 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Atlanta were on the road by 8:19 AM, 9 minutes later than in 2009 (8:10 AM). Across Georgia, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Atlanta now leave 41 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in Atlanta has moved 11 minutes later. The 2024 release is the latest typical start for Atlanta in the whole series.

How does Atlanta's commute time compare?

Metric	Atlanta	Georgia	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	22.7 min	23.6 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	09:00 AM – 09:59 AM	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	29.8%	15.9%	15.0%
Walked	4.0%	1.3%	2.4%
Public Transit	5.7%	1.1%	3.2%

The average commute time in Atlanta is 22.7 minutes, shorter than the 23.6 minutes in Georgia.

5.7% commute by public transit, higher than the 1.1% in Georgia. 4.0% commute by walking, higher than the 1.3% in Georgia.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Atlanta, GA Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

How Atlanta, GA compares with the 1 cities closest to it.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Atlanta, GA	502,134	22.7 min #1/2	29.8% #1/2	8:19 AM #2/2
East Point, GA	39,616	27.2 min	19.0%	7:36 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Atlanta, Georgia.

How much does the average commute cost workers in Atlanta, Georgia?

Commuters here spend an estimated 189 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $5,857 at a typical national wage. That's 4% less than the typical Georgia commuter spends.

When is rush hour worst in Atlanta, Georgia?

Traffic peaks between 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM in Atlanta, Georgia. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 09:00 AM – 09:59 AM also sees a secondary bump.

How common is public transit use in Atlanta, Georgia?

Public transit usage is notably higher here than typical: about 5.7% of commuters use it versus 1.1% in Georgia, making it a realistic option for many workers.

How much money can remote workers save in Atlanta, Georgia?

About 29.8% of workers here already work from home. Working from home just 2 days a week in Atlanta would save about 76 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,343 at the same national wage assumption used above.