Pontiac Commute Time Map & Patterns

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

You 9/24/26, 4:05 PM

What does a typical morning commute look like in Pontiac?

Map AI 9/24/26, 4:05 PM

Commute Time Burden in Pontiac: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Pontiac spend about 37 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 152 hours, about 6.3 full days, spent commuting. That is 14% less time on the road than the Michigan average of 21.3 minutes each way, a difference of 3.0 minutes.

Pontiac holds about 0.6% of Michigan's population but accounts for roughly 0.5% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Pontiac would save about 61 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,889 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)
Pontiac	18.3 min	36.6 min	152 hrs/yr	$4,722	3,687
Michigan	21.3 min	42.6 min	178 hrs/yr	$5,509	1,585
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.

Pontiac Commute Map

On average, it takes 18.3 minutes to get to work in Pontiac. That's 18% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 4.9% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Pontiac

Taking a taxi is unusually common in Pontiac: 4.8 times more than the Michigan average (0.7% vs 0.1%).

Commute Mode Trends in Pontiac, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Pontiac 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	Taxi	Public Transportation	Bicycle	Motorcycle
2009	93.5%	2.2%	2.2%	1.1%	0.1%	0.7%	0.2%	0.0%
2010	93.7%	1.9%	1.6%	1.4%	0.1%	1.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2011	93.7%	1.5%	1.7%	0.7%	0.4%	1.8%	0.1%	0.0%
2012	92.9%	1.5%	2.0%	0.9%	0.5%	2.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2013	92.9%	1.3%	1.9%	1.3%	0.3%	2.0%	0.3%	0.0%
2014	92.9%	1.7%	1.8%	1.0%	0.4%	2.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2015	92.8%	1.9%	2.6%	0.8%	0.3%	1.3%	0.3%	0.0%
2016	93.2%	2.0%	2.7%	0.7%	0.1%	0.9%	0.4%	0.0%
2017	93.2%	2.8%	2.1%	0.7%	0.1%	0.8%	0.2%	0.1%
2018	93.7%	2.3%	2.0%	0.4%	0.5%	0.8%	0.1%	0.1%
2019	93.2%	2.3%	2.4%	0.5%	0.4%	0.9%	0.1%	0.1%
2020	92.4%	3.2%	1.9%	0.7%	0.5%	1.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2021	91.0%	3.6%	2.7%	0.9%	0.5%	1.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2022	91.3%	3.1%	2.4%	1.1%	0.8%	0.9%	0.4%	0.1%
2023	89.5%	4.1%	3.1%	1.2%	0.4%	1.1%	0.4%	0.0%
2024	90.3%	4.9%	2.0%	1.1%	0.7%	0.6%	0.4%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share was highest in 2010 at 93.7% and lowest in 2023 at 89.5%. Overall it fell from 93.5% in 2009 to 90.3% in 2024, down 3.2 percentage points. It has risen in the latest release.

Working from home gained the most ground in Pontiac: its share of workers rose from 2.2% in 2009 to 4.9% in 2024, up 2.7 percentage points. Most of that increase, 2.6 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit peaked at 2.1% in 2014 and has since fallen back to 0.6%.

Commute Start Times in Pontiac

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Pontiac?

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

12:00-4:59 AM		4.2%
5:00-5:29 AM		3.7%
5:30-5:59 AM		4.4%
6:00-6:29 AM		8.1%
6:30-6:59 AM		8.0%
7:00-7:29 AM		12.8%
7:30-7:59 AM		9.8%
8:00-8:29 AM		11.0%
8:30-8:59 AM		5.7%
9:00-9:59 AM		9.0%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.9%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.3%
12:00-3:59 PM		10.1%
4:00-11:59 PM		9.1%

Pontiac Michigan Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Pontiac is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 12.8% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.0% across Michigan. Early starts are less common than in Michigan: 12.2% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.3% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Michigan: 41.6% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 45.0% 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 Pontiac, 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 Pontiac 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 Pontiac next to Michigan 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	Pontiac	Michigan	United States
2009	7:51 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:52 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:53 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:57 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2013	8:00 AM	7:45 AM	7:39 AM
2014	8:04 AM	7:45 AM	7:39 AM
2015	8:08 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2016	8:02 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:59 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:55 AM	7:43 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:53 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:49 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:53 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:54 AM	7:43 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:57 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:57 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Pontiac were on the road by 7:57 AM, 7 minutes later than in 2009 (7:51 AM). Across Michigan, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Pontiac now leave 19 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 Pontiac has moved 4 minutes later.

How does Pontiac's commute time compare?

Metric	Pontiac	Michigan	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	18.3 min	21.3 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	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	4.9%	13.5%	15.0%
Walked	2.0%	2.0%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.6%	0.9%	3.2%

The average commute time in Pontiac is 18.3 minutes, shorter than the 21.3 minutes in Michigan.

0.6% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.9% in Michigan. The share of commuters using walking is about the same as Michigan.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Pontiac, MI Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

How Pontiac, MI compares with the 1 cities closest to it.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Pontiac, MI	62,501	18.3 min #1/2	4.9% #2/2	7:57 AM #2/2
Auburn Hills, MI	24,784	18.9 min	18.8%	7:48 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Pontiac, Michigan.

Is living in Pontiac, Michigan good for avoiding long commute costs?

Commuters here spend an estimated 152 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $4,722 at a typical national wage. That's 14% less than the typical Michigan commuter spends.

When is peak congestion during the morning commute in Pontiac, Michigan?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Pontiac, Michigan. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM also sees a secondary bump.