Abilene Commute Time Map & Patterns

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

You 9/24/26, 1:45 PM

How long is the round-trip commute in Abilene?

Map AI 9/24/26, 1:45 PM

Commute Time Burden in Abilene: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Abilene spend about 27 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 113 hours, about 4.7 full days, spent commuting. That is 40% less time on the road than the Texas average of 22.8 minutes each way, a difference of 9.2 minutes.

Abilene holds about 0.4% of Texas's population but accounts for roughly 0.2% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Abilene would save about 45 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,405 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)
Abilene	13.6 min	27.2 min	113 hrs/yr	$3,512	1,627
Texas	22.8 min	45.6 min	190 hrs/yr	$5,888	1,441
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.

Abilene Commute Map

On average, it takes 13.6 minutes to get to work in Abilene. That's 39% 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 7.9% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Abilene

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Abilene, versus 0.2% in Texas.

Commute Mode Trends in Abilene, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Abilene 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	Motorcycle	Bicycle	Taxi
2009	92.1%	2.3%	2.7%	1.5%	0.4%	0.4%	0.5%	0.1%
2010	91.7%	2.4%	2.8%	1.6%	0.5%	0.4%	0.6%	0.1%
2011	91.4%	1.9%	2.8%	2.6%	0.6%	0.2%	0.4%	0.1%
2012	90.7%	1.9%	3.3%	2.6%	0.8%	0.3%	0.5%	0.0%
2013	91.5%	2.0%	2.9%	2.3%	0.8%	0.2%	0.3%	0.0%
2014	91.7%	2.6%	2.9%	1.5%	0.9%	0.2%	0.3%	0.0%
2015	92.4%	2.6%	2.6%	1.1%	0.7%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%
2016	91.8%	3.7%	2.6%	0.4%	1.0%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%
2017	91.2%	4.6%	2.5%	0.5%	0.8%	0.2%	0.3%	0.0%
2018	90.2%	5.4%	2.8%	0.5%	0.8%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%
2019	90.5%	5.2%	2.4%	0.5%	0.7%	0.2%	0.3%	0.1%
2020	89.5%	5.8%	2.8%	0.4%	0.9%	0.2%	0.3%	0.1%
2021	90.2%	6.0%	2.4%	0.5%	0.3%	0.2%	0.3%	0.0%
2022	89.6%	6.6%	2.2%	0.5%	0.4%	0.3%	0.4%	0.0%
2023	88.4%	7.3%	2.5%	0.7%	0.5%	0.2%	0.4%	0.0%
2024	87.9%	7.9%	2.6%	0.8%	0.4%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2015 at 92.4%. Overall it fell from 92.1% in 2009 to 87.9% in 2024, down 4.2 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 3 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Abilene: its share of workers rose from 2.3% in 2009 to 7.9% in 2024, up 5.6 percentage points.

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

Commute Start Times in Abilene

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Abilene?

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

12:00-4:59 AM		4.7%
5:00-5:29 AM		2.4%
5:30-5:59 AM		5.4%
6:00-6:29 AM		5.2%
6:30-6:59 AM		10.5%
7:00-7:29 AM		13.4%
7:30-7:59 AM		19.6%
8:00-8:29 AM		9.0%
8:30-8:59 AM		5.0%
9:00-9:59 AM		4.1%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.8%
11:00-11:59 AM		0.8%
12:00-3:59 PM		8.1%
4:00-11:59 PM		8.9%

Abilene Texas Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Abilene is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 19.6% of commuters leave home, compared with 11.8% across Texas. Early starts are less common than in Texas: 12.5% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.9% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Texas: 52.5% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.9% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (24.8%) 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 Abilene, 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 Abilene 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 Abilene next to Texas 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	Abilene	Texas	United States
2009	7:48 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:49 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:49 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:51 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:52 AM	7:32 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:52 AM	7:32 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:50 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:48 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:47 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:45 AM	7:30 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:45 AM	7:30 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:46 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:45 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:46 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:45 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:43 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Abilene were on the road by 7:43 AM, 5 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:48 AM). That goes against the trend across Texas, where the typical commuter now leaves 1 minute later than in 2009. Commuters in Abilene 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 Abilene has moved 2 minutes earlier. The 2024 release is the earliest typical start for Abilene in the whole series.

How does Abilene's commute time compare?

Metric	Abilene	Texas	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	13.6 min	22.8 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	7.9%	14.4%	15.0%
Walked	2.6%	1.5%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.4%	0.9%	3.2%

The average commute time in Abilene is 13.6 minutes, shorter than the 22.8 minutes in Texas.

0.4% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.9% in Texas. 2.6% commute by walking, higher than the 1.5% in Texas.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Abilene, Texas.

Is commuting expensive in Abilene, Texas?

Commuters here spend an estimated 113 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $3,512 at a typical national wage. That's 40% less than the typical Texas commuter spends.

What time should you leave for work to avoid traffic in Abilene, Texas?

Traffic peaks between 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM in Abilene, Texas. 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.