Memphis Commute Time Map & Patterns

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

You 9/24/26, 4:20 PM

How long is the round-trip commute in Memphis?

Map AI 9/24/26, 4:20 PM

Commute Time Burden in Memphis: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Memphis spend about 42 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 175 hours, about 7.3 full days, spent commuting. That is 6% less time on the road than the Tennessee average of 22.4 minutes each way, a difference of 1.4 minutes.

Memphis holds about 8.6% of Tennessee's population but accounts for roughly 8.1% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Memphis would save about 70 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,174 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)
Memphis	21.0 min	42.1 min	175 hrs/yr	$5,434	2,763
Tennessee	22.4 min	44.8 min	187 hrs/yr	$5,785	1,225
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.

Memphis Commute Map

On average, it takes 21.0 minutes to get to work in Memphis. That's 6% 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 9.2% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Memphis

Commute Mode Trends in Memphis, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Memphis 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	91.6%	2.1%	2.0%	1.3%	2.7%	0.0%	0.2%	0.1%
2010	91.6%	2.3%	2.1%	1.1%	2.6%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2011	91.7%	2.4%	2.0%	1.0%	2.5%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2012	91.8%	2.3%	2.0%	1.0%	2.5%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2013	92.0%	2.3%	1.9%	1.1%	2.4%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2014	92.1%	2.2%	1.8%	1.1%	2.3%	0.1%	0.3%	0.1%
2015	91.8%	2.3%	1.8%	1.4%	2.3%	0.1%	0.3%	0.1%
2016	91.7%	2.5%	1.9%	1.4%	2.2%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2017	91.9%	2.7%	1.7%	1.4%	2.0%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2018	92.3%	2.7%	1.5%	1.3%	1.8%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2019	92.6%	2.8%	1.6%	1.1%	1.5%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2020	92.1%	3.7%	1.4%	1.0%	1.3%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2021	90.9%	5.3%	1.4%	1.0%	1.1%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%
2022	89.4%	6.4%	1.7%	1.1%	0.9%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%
2023	87.8%	8.0%	1.7%	1.2%	0.8%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%
2024	86.5%	9.2%	1.8%	1.3%	0.8%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2019 at 92.6%. Overall it fell from 91.6% in 2009 to 86.5% in 2024, down 5.1 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Memphis: its share of workers rose from 2.1% in 2009 to 9.2% in 2024, up 7.1 percentage points. Most of that increase, 6.4 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 2.7% to 0.8% of workers (down 1.9 percentage points).

Working from home overtook public transit to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2016 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Memphis

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Memphis?

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

12:00-4:59 AM		5.2%
5:00-5:29 AM		3.1%
5:30-5:59 AM		4.4%
6:00-6:29 AM		8.2%
6:30-6:59 AM		8.8%
7:00-7:29 AM		14.0%
7:30-7:59 AM		12.0%
8:00-8:29 AM		11.0%
8:30-8:59 AM		5.1%
9:00-9:59 AM		6.4%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.7%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.7%
12:00-3:59 PM		7.7%
4:00-11:59 PM		9.7%

Memphis Tennessee Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Memphis is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 14.0% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.7% across Tennessee. Early starts are less common than in Tennessee: 12.6% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 15.7% there. The morning rush looks much like Tennessee's: 45.8% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.4% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (28.2%) 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 Memphis, 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 Memphis 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 Memphis next to Tennessee 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	Memphis	Tennessee	United States
2009	7:43 AM	7:30 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:43 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:44 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:45 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:46 AM	7:30 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:47 AM	7:30 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:48 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:48 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:47 AM	7:29 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:46 AM	7:29 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:45 AM	7:28 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:46 AM	7:29 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:45 AM	7:29 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:47 AM	7:29 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:47 AM	7:29 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:46 AM	7:29 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Memphis were on the road by 7:46 AM, 3 minutes later than in 2009 (7:43 AM). Across Tennessee, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Memphis now leave 8 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Memphis's commute time compare?

Metric	Memphis	Tennessee	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	21.0 min	22.4 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	9.2%	12.9%	15.0%
Walked	1.8%	1.2%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.8%	0.4%	3.2%

The average commute time in Memphis is 21.0 minutes, shorter than the 22.4 minutes in Tennessee.

0.8% commute by public transit, higher than the 0.4% in Tennessee. 1.8% commute by walking, higher than the 1.2% in Tennessee.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Memphis, TN Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

Memphis, TN is the largest of the 5 cities compared here, 607,914 residents against a local median of 48,376. There is no headline here. Every measure below sits within 15% of the median across the nearest cities, which makes Memphis, TN an unremarkable member of its own neighbourhood rather than an outlier in it.

The largest of those small differences is one-way commute, 10% below the local median at 21.0 min against 23.4 min. Memphis, TN has the lowest one-way commute of the 5 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Memphis, TN	607,914	21.0 min #1/5	9.2% #4/5	7:46 AM #4/5
Southaven, MS	54,424	23.1 min	9.8%	7:20 AM
Horn Lake, MS	24,794	25.6 min	6.1%	7:17 AM
Germantown, TN	42,327	22.0 min	20.5%	7:57 AM
Bartlett, TN	58,448	23.7 min	10.3%	7:34 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Memphis, Tennessee.

Is commuting expensive in Memphis, Tennessee?

Commuters here spend an estimated 175 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $5,434 at a typical national wage. That's 6% less than the typical Tennessee commuter spends.

What time should you leave for work to avoid traffic in Memphis, Tennessee?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Memphis, Tennessee. 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.