Manchester Commute Time Map & Patterns

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

You 9/24/26, 12:11 PM

How many minutes is the average drive to work in Manchester?

Map AI 9/24/26, 12:11 PM

Commute Time Burden in Manchester: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Manchester spend about 41 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 173 hours, about 7.2 full days, spent commuting. That is 8% less time on the road than the New Hampshire average of 22.5 minutes each way, a difference of 1.8 minutes.

Manchester holds about 8.3% of New Hampshire's population but accounts for roughly 7.6% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Manchester would save about 69 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,143 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)
Manchester	20.7 min	41.5 min	173 hrs/yr	$5,358	2,544
New Hampshire	22.5 min	45.0 min	188 hrs/yr	$5,813	1,232
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.

Manchester Commute Map

On average, it takes 20.7 minutes to get to work in Manchester. 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 14.1% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Manchester

Taking a taxi is unusually common in Manchester: 3.4 times more than the New Hampshire average (0.4% vs 0.1%).

Commute Mode Trends in Manchester, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Manchester 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	Public Transportation	Taxi	Bicycle	Motorcycle
2009	93.0%	2.3%	2.8%	0.4%	0.6%	0.2%	0.5%	0.1%
2010	92.9%	2.5%	2.6%	0.5%	0.9%	0.2%	0.4%	0.1%
2011	92.5%	2.8%	2.5%	0.6%	0.9%	0.2%	0.4%	0.1%
2012	92.1%	3.1%	2.7%	0.6%	1.2%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2013	91.9%	3.1%	2.6%	0.6%	1.4%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2014	91.2%	3.6%	2.9%	0.6%	1.3%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%
2015	91.2%	3.4%	3.0%	0.5%	1.2%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%
2016	90.7%	3.7%	3.3%	0.5%	1.2%	0.1%	0.3%	0.2%
2017	90.8%	3.5%	3.2%	0.7%	1.1%	0.2%	0.4%	0.2%
2018	90.3%	4.0%	3.3%	0.7%	0.9%	0.3%	0.3%	0.2%
2019	90.1%	4.2%	3.2%	0.8%	0.9%	0.3%	0.3%	0.2%
2020	88.7%	6.0%	3.3%	0.8%	0.6%	0.2%	0.3%	0.1%
2021	86.7%	8.8%	2.6%	0.8%	0.5%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%
2022	85.0%	10.5%	2.7%	0.8%	0.5%	0.4%	0.2%	0.1%
2023	83.3%	12.1%	2.4%	1.1%	0.5%	0.3%	0.3%	0.1%
2024	80.8%	14.1%	2.4%	1.3%	0.6%	0.4%	0.3%	0.1%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share fell from 93.0% in 2009 to 80.8% in 2024, down 12.2 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 7 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Manchester: its share of workers rose from 2.3% in 2009 to 14.1% in 2024, up 11.8 percentage points. Most of that increase, 9.9 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2011 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Manchester

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Manchester?

The bars show when commuters in Manchester 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 New Hampshire for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM		6.2%
5:00-5:29 AM		3.0%
5:30-5:59 AM		4.4%
6:00-6:29 AM		8.0%
6:30-6:59 AM		9.5%
7:00-7:29 AM		15.3%
7:30-7:59 AM		11.5%
8:00-8:29 AM		10.6%
8:30-8:59 AM		7.0%
9:00-9:59 AM		5.4%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.6%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.8%
12:00-3:59 PM		7.8%
4:00-11:59 PM		7.0%

Manchester New Hampshire Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Manchester is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 15.3% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.1% across New Hampshire. Early starts are about as common as in New Hampshire: 13.6% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.3% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in New Hampshire: 46.9% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 50.0% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (24.6%) 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 Manchester, 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 Manchester 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 Manchester next to New Hampshire 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	Manchester	New Hampshire	United States
2009	7:38 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:37 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:37 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:35 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:35 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:38 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:42 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:43 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:44 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:45 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:41 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:38 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:39 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:38 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:40 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:39 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Manchester were on the road by 7:39 AM, 1 minute later than in 2009 (7:38 AM). That goes against the trend across New Hampshire, where the typical commuter now leaves 3 minutes earlier than in 2009. Commuters in Manchester now leave 2 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 Manchester has moved 2 minutes earlier.

How does Manchester's commute time compare?

Metric	Manchester	New Hampshire	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	20.7 min	22.5 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	14.1%	16.8%	15.0%
Walked	2.4%	2.3%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.6%	0.5%	3.2%

The average commute time in Manchester is 20.7 minutes, shorter than the 22.5 minutes in New Hampshire.

0.6% commute by public transit, higher than the 0.5% in New Hampshire. 2.4% commute by walking, higher than the 2.3% in New Hampshire.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Manchester, New Hampshire.

How much does the average commute cost workers in Manchester, New Hampshire?

Commuters here spend an estimated 173 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $5,358 at a typical national wage. That's 8% less than the typical New Hampshire commuter spends.

When is rush hour worst in Manchester, New Hampshire?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Manchester, New Hampshire. 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.