Drive Time Estimator

How long will your drive take? Pick a trip, a day and when you'll leave. The estimate comes from typical freeway traffic at that exact time, measured by road sensors.

How the estimate works

Road sensors along the freeways record how fast traffic moves every few minutes, and we keep a running average for every 15 minutes of every day of the week. To estimate a trip, we follow the route stretch by stretch and use the typical speed for the moment you would reach each stretch, so leaving at 7:30 meets the traffic that is usually downtown at 7:55, not at 7:30. Time on streets without sensors is added at normal speeds.

It is a traffic time estimator for normal days: crashes, closures, storms and holidays can make a trip slower. For what is happening right now, open the live traffic map, which also forecasts the next four hours.

Questions

How do I estimate traffic at a certain time?

Pick where you are starting, where you are going, the day and the time you plan to leave. The estimator shows how long the drive usually takes then, when you would arrive, and whether leaving a little earlier or later would be faster.

Is this a traffic calculator by time of day?

Yes. The bar chart under each estimate shows the drive time for every departure from 4 am to 10 pm, so you can see at a glance how rush hour changes the trip. Tap a bar to pick that time.

How accurate is the drive time estimate?

On a normal day most trips land within a few minutes of the estimate, because it comes from what the same freeways actually did at the same time on the same weekday. Crashes, weather, events and holidays are not included.

Which trips are covered?

Trips between 868 pairs of cities in Southern California, San Diego County, the Bay Area and the Sacramento area, with more regions added as we get their road-sensor data.

Popular trips

West Covina to Santa Monica · Santa Clarita to Los Angeles · Irvine to Los Angeles · Riverside to Irvine · Los Angeles to San Diego · Escondido to San Diego · San Jose to San Francisco · Fremont to Palo Alto · Roseville to Sacramento · all trips