Traffic Trends: Days of the Week

"cazzyodo" (cazzyodo) 07/22/2016 at 13:41 • Filed to: None

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So last year saw a lot of changes in my life. I started a new job, moved into the city and even got a post shared to the !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! on how I planned on dealing with traffic on my new-found commute.

Since day one of my new position I tracked how long it took for me to get to work each morning. I did this for my 33-ish mile commute from just south of Boston to my office near New Hampshire as well as my current 25-ish mile commute from the city itself. There are various routes I could take from each location and I differentiated those as well but here I will expand on some trends I noticed over 219 entries.

Top: south of Boston 2015, Middle: Boston 2015, Bottom: Boston 2016

What I immediately noticed is that cutting 8 miles from my commute decreased my time by at least 2 minutes a mile. Which basically told me that reverse commuting is fantastic! Though heading home to the city can be a cluster, heading to work generally isn’t bad at all.

Now, in regards to days of the week, the 200+ entries I have all say the same thing: Wednesdays are the worst commuting day and Fridays are the best. In my mind, this makes sense. Monday and Friday can make long weekends for people so they are more likely to be vacation day targets whereas Wednesday is not. Wednesday is literally the hump day in the curve.

I’ve been tracking based on weather as well but do not have any conclusive evidence of trends outside of the general statement “commute time increases if stuff falls from the sky.”

So there you have it. Wednesdays are the worst days to commute to work on. If you want an easy drive, try Friday...though the evening commute may be stacked with people going to the city/nearest destination.

Anyone notice anything about their drives or commutes? What factors affect you?

OPPOsaurus WRX > cazzyodo 07/22/2016 at 14:04

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I’ve seen the same. Fridayts are pretty light mondays are ok and the rest of the week hammers on my balls

bobbe17 > cazzyodo 07/22/2016 at 14:04

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Are you an engineer? It’s the best explanation for this level of obsession and analysis of the mundane. I always mean to track times and will occasionally start a clock, but then I forget to stop it and it does nothing for me.

The major thing I've noticed about my commutes other than usually easier on Fridays, is that a ten minute departure time can have a huge affect on the level of traffic. If I leave just ten minutes earlier, I'll have a four lane highway to myself vs. getting stopped at lights with ten other cars.

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > bobbe17 07/22/2016 at 14:10

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Haha I was supremely fascinated by this study and immediately thought about the amount of times I thought into this. And then I see your comment and it all made sense why I enjoyed it. I am an engineer, so naturally that’s why I must like this stuff.

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > cazzyodo 07/22/2016 at 14:18

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I don’t have a real commute anymore, I drive 15 minutes to get to work, about 20 minutes to get home. 8-10 miles depending on my route. But when I used to drive a 60 mile commute between school and work every day, I definitely kept track of this stuff in my head. The mornings no matter what took about 1 hour max to get to work (all highway really) due to never seeing traffic at 6am. However, at 4pm when I left work it would range from taking 1:15 to 2-2:30 in order to get home depending on the day. I found that for some reason, Monday was always void of ANY traffic and it would take 1 hour. Then Tuesday and Thursday were pretty average in the 1:15-1:30 range but holy shit Wednesday was always bad with often 2 hour drives to get home. I didn’t work Fridays that whole summer so idk about that one. Anyways, it is much nicer now that even if the world is ending (multiple inches of snow) it still never takes more than a half hour to get home. This is in NJ, long commute was Hoboken to Toms River.

TheRealBicycleBuck > cazzyodo 07/22/2016 at 14:29

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I time-shifted my work hours to avoid the worst of the traffic and make myself available for after-school activities with my kids. That made the biggest difference.

Despite all this, Friday afternoons are still a pain. All of the people heading to New Orleans for the weekend are coming through town at that time and clogging up my afternoon commute. Alternative routes don’t work since all of the locals move off the interstate to avoid the weekenders and end up clogging up all of the other roads.

Mid Engine > cazzyodo 07/22/2016 at 15:13

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I’ve carefully studied traffic patterns around Seattle and have come to the conclusion there is never, ever, a good time to drive around here. Traffic is a complete nightmare.

cazzyodo > OPPOsaurus WRX 07/22/2016 at 17:03

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Sounds about right.

cazzyodo > bobbe17 07/22/2016 at 17:04

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Not an engineer though I’ve been told my major in college should have been.

cazzyodo > Mid Engine 07/22/2016 at 17:06

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Sounds like Boston. I’ve gone through the city at 2am on a Sunday and come to a complete halt on the highway. I don’t understand anything anymore though clearly I still try to.