Rotterdam Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Rotterdam: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Rotterdam spend about 44 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 183 hours, about 7.6 full days, spent commuting. That is 23% less time on the road than the New York average of 28.7 minutes each way, a difference of 6.7 minutes.

Rotterdam holds about 0.1% of New York's population and accounts for roughly 0.1% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Rotterdam would save about 73 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,273 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)
Rotterdam	22.0 min	44.0 min	183 hrs/yr	$5,682	2,403
New York	28.7 min	57.4 min	239 hrs/yr	$7,414	1,586
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.

Rotterdam Commute Map

On average, it takes 22.0 minutes to get to work in Rotterdam. That's 2% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM, followed by 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 15.3% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Rotterdam

• Car: 83.3% unusually high
• Worked at Home: 15.3%
• Public Transportation: 0.8% unusually low
• Other: 0.3%
• Walked: 0.2% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Rotterdam, versus 0.1% in New York.

Driving is 51% more common in Rotterdam than the New York average (83.3% vs 55.0%).

Walking is unusually rare in Rotterdam: 25.4 times less than the New York average (0.2% vs 5.6%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Rotterdam: 26.0 times less than the New York average (0.8% vs 21.7%).

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in Rotterdam: 8.1 times less than the New York average (0.1% vs 0.7%).

Biking is unusually rare in Rotterdam: 33.4 times less than the New York average (0.0% vs 0.8%).

Few people walk or bike to work in Rotterdam: just 0.2%, 26.2 times below the New York average of 6.4%.

Commute Mode Trends in Rotterdam, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Rotterdam 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.

• Car
• Worked at Home
• Public Transportation
• Other
• Walked
• Taxi
• Motorcycle
• Bicycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Public Transportation	Other	Walked	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	96.2%	2.4%	0.4%	0.1%	0.7%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2010	96.3%	2.8%	0.1%	0.0%	0.8%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2011	95.5%	3.0%	0.4%	0.0%	0.5%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%
2012	95.2%	3.4%	0.4%	0.0%	0.6%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%
2013	93.8%	4.3%	0.4%	0.0%	1.1%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%
2014	94.1%	3.8%	0.4%	0.0%	1.2%	0.4%	0.0%	0.2%
2015	94.2%	3.2%	0.8%	0.2%	1.0%	0.3%	0.0%	0.2%
2016	94.3%	2.9%	0.6%	0.5%	1.0%	0.3%	0.0%	0.3%
2017	94.3%	2.6%	0.8%	0.6%	0.9%	0.4%	0.1%	0.3%
2018	94.2%	2.6%	0.9%	1.0%	0.5%	0.4%	0.1%	0.4%
2019	92.4%	3.4%	1.4%	1.4%	0.5%	0.4%	0.1%	0.4%
2020	91.7%	5.5%	0.9%	0.5%	0.6%	0.4%	0.2%	0.2%
2021	89.1%	8.5%	1.2%	0.3%	0.4%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%
2022	88.1%	9.9%	0.9%	0.4%	0.3%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	84.8%	13.4%	0.8%	0.3%	0.3%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	83.3%	15.3%	0.8%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2010 at 96.3%. Overall it fell from 96.2% in 2009 to 83.3% in 2024, down 12.9 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 7 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Rotterdam: its share of workers rose from 2.4% in 2009 to 15.3% in 2024, up 12.9 percentage points. Most of that increase, 11.9 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit overtook walking to become the 3rd most common choice in the 2018 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Rotterdam

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Rotterdam?

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

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Rotterdam3.2% New York3.9%	3.2%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Rotterdam1.3% New York2.9%	1.3%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Rotterdam4.5% New York3.7%	4.5%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Rotterdam6.2% New York7.5%	6.2%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Rotterdam16.0% New York8.1%	16.0%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Rotterdam11.4% New York13.9%	11.4%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Rotterdam14.4% New York11.1%	14.4%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Rotterdam14.0% New York14.0%	14.0%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Rotterdam9.4% New York7.7%	9.4%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Rotterdam5.7% New York9.5%	5.7%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Rotterdam2.2% New York3.7%	2.2%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Rotterdam1.5% New York1.7%	1.5%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Rotterdam6.2% New York6.9%	6.2%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Rotterdam3.9% New York5.3%	3.9%

Rotterdam New York Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Rotterdam is 6:30-6:59 AM, when 16.0% of commuters leave home, compared with 8.1% across New York. Early starts are less common than in New York: 9.0% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 10.6% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in New York: 55.9% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.1% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (19.5%) 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 Rotterdam, 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 Rotterdam 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 Rotterdam next to New York 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.

• Rotterdam
• New York
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Rotterdam	New York	United States
2009	7:41 AM	7:54 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:44 AM	7:54 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:44 AM	7:54 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:47 AM	7:55 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:53 AM	7:56 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:54 AM	7:56 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:52 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:51 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:51 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:51 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:47 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:48 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:51 AM	7:55 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:52 AM	7:56 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:44 AM	7:56 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:45 AM	7:57 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Rotterdam were on the road by 7:45 AM, 4 minutes later than in 2009 (7:41 AM). New York followed the same path, with the typical start moving 3 minutes later. Commuters in Rotterdam now leave 8 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Rotterdam's commute time compare?

Metric	Rotterdam	New York	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	22.0 min	28.7 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	06:30 AM – 06:59 AM	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	15.3%	15.0%	15.0%
Walked	0.2%	5.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.8%	21.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Rotterdam is 22.0 minutes, shorter than the 28.7 minutes in New York.

0.8% commute by public transit, lower than the 21.7% in New York. 0.2% commute by walking, lower than the 5.6% in New York.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau