Tulsa County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Help

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

You 9/24/26, 8:32 PM

What does a typical morning commute look like in Tulsa County?

Map AI 9/24/26, 8:32 PM

Commute Time Burden in Tulsa County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Tulsa County spend about 37 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 155 hours, about 6.4 full days, spent commuting. That is 2% less time on the road than the Oklahoma average of 19.0 minutes each way, a difference of 0.4 minutes.

Tulsa County holds about 16.9% of Oklahoma's population but accounts for roughly 16.5% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Tulsa County would save about 62 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,917 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)
Tulsa County	18.6 min	37.1 min	155 hrs/yr	$4,793	2,199
Oklahoma	19.0 min	37.9 min	158 hrs/yr	$4,901	941
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.

Commute Time Map: Oklahoma Counties

Fastest commutes among counties in Oklahoma

Cimarron County (4.8 min)
Woods County (8.5 min)
Harmon County (8.8 min)

Slowest commutes among counties in Oklahoma

Cotton County (30.4 min)
Logan County (28.5 min)
Lincoln County (28.0 min)

Compare commute times among different counties

Tulsa County

Click a county to open it Explore the map →

Average commute time

On average, it takes 18.6 minutes to get to work in Tulsa County. That's 17% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM, followed by 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 11.5% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Tulsa County

Commute Mode Trends in Tulsa County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Tulsa County 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	92.4%	3.5%	1.7%	1.1%	0.7%	0.1%	0.2%	0.3%
2010	92.3%	3.8%	1.6%	1.0%	0.7%	0.0%	0.2%	0.3%
2011	92.5%	3.8%	1.6%	0.8%	0.7%	0.1%	0.3%	0.2%
2012	92.6%	3.7%	1.5%	0.9%	0.7%	0.1%	0.3%	0.2%
2013	92.8%	3.8%	1.4%	0.8%	0.8%	0.1%	0.3%	0.2%
2014	92.6%	3.8%	1.4%	0.9%	0.8%	0.1%	0.3%	0.2%
2015	92.6%	3.8%	1.3%	1.0%	0.7%	0.1%	0.3%	0.2%
2016	92.4%	3.9%	1.3%	1.1%	0.7%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%
2017	92.3%	4.0%	1.3%	1.2%	0.7%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%
2018	92.1%	4.1%	1.4%	1.2%	0.6%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%
2019	92.0%	4.2%	1.4%	1.3%	0.6%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%
2020	91.0%	5.6%	1.4%	1.1%	0.5%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2021	89.3%	7.4%	1.4%	1.1%	0.4%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2022	87.9%	8.7%	1.4%	1.2%	0.4%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2023	86.5%	10.3%	1.3%	1.1%	0.4%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2024	85.4%	11.5%	1.3%	1.0%	0.3%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2013 at 92.8%. Overall it fell from 92.4% in 2009 to 85.4% in 2024, down 7.0 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 9 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Tulsa County: its share of workers rose from 3.5% in 2009 to 11.5% in 2024, up 8.0 percentage points. Most of that increase, 7.3 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in Tulsa County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Tulsa County?

The bars show when commuters in Tulsa County 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 Oklahoma for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM		5.3%
5:00-5:29 AM		3.4%
5:30-5:59 AM		4.1%
6:00-6:29 AM		7.4%
6:30-6:59 AM		9.5%
7:00-7:29 AM		14.2%
7:30-7:59 AM		14.4%
8:00-8:29 AM		11.6%
8:30-8:59 AM		5.4%
9:00-9:59 AM		6.9%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.9%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.4%
12:00-3:59 PM		6.3%
4:00-11:59 PM		7.1%

Tulsa County Oklahoma Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Tulsa County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 14.4% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.5% across Oklahoma. Early starts are less common than in Oklahoma: 12.8% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 13.9% there. The morning rush looks much like Oklahoma's: 49.7% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 50.4% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (24.7%) 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 Tulsa County, 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 Tulsa County 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 Tulsa County next to Oklahoma 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	Tulsa County	Oklahoma	United States
2009	7:43 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:43 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:43 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:42 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:43 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:43 AM	7:35 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:42 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:41 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:41 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:41 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:41 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:42 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:42 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:43 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:43 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:43 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Tulsa County were on the road by 7:43 AM, almost exactly the same as in 2009. Across Oklahoma, meanwhile, the typical commuter now leaves 4 minutes earlier than in 2009. Commuters in Tulsa County now leave 5 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 Tulsa County has moved 2 minutes later.

How does Tulsa County's commute time compare?

Metric	Tulsa County	Oklahoma	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	18.6 min	19.0 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	11.5%	9.4%	15.0%
Walked	1.3%	1.8%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.3%	0.3%	3.2%

The average commute time in Tulsa County is about the same as in Oklahoma.

The share of commuters using public transit is about the same as Oklahoma. 1.3% commute by walking, lower than the 1.8% in Oklahoma.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Tulsa County, OK Commute Compared With Nearby Counties

Tulsa County, OK is the largest of the 6 counties compared here, 680,925 residents against a local median of 72,818. The measure that sets Tulsa County, OK apart most is work from home: 11.5%, 25% above the local median of 9.2%.

One-way commute tells the same story from another angle: 18.6 min against a local median of 23.9 min, 23% below it. The one measure here that carries a verdict is one-way commute, and at 23% below the local median it puts Tulsa County, OK at the better end of the local range. The counties themselves spread 3.9% on work from home, so Tulsa County, OK sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. Tulsa County, OK has the 2nd highest work from home of the 6 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Tulsa County, OK	680,925	18.6 min #2/6	11.5% #2/6	7:43 AM #6/6
Rogers County, OK	98,605	23.9 min	11.5%	7:21 AM
Wagoner County, OK	86,605	25.4 min	9.2%	7:24 AM
Okmulgee County, OK	36,895	18.8 min	8.4%	7:32 AM
Creek County, OK	72,818	24.0 min	10.1%	7:18 AM
Washington County, OK	53,323	15.4 min	7.6%	7:37 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Tulsa County, Oklahoma.

Is commuting expensive in Tulsa County, Oklahoma?

Commuters here spend an estimated 155 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $4,793 at a typical national wage. That's 2% less than the typical Oklahoma commuter spends.

What time should you leave for work to avoid traffic in Tulsa County, Oklahoma?

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

How do commute times compare across counties in Oklahoma?

Among counties in Oklahoma, the shortest average commutes are in Cimarron County (4.8 min), Woods County (8.5 min), Harmon County (8.8 min). The longest are in Cotton County (30.4 min), Logan County (28.5 min), Lincoln County (28.0 min).