Is 10-to-4 the new 9-to-5?
New data estimates that midday traffic is up in downtown areas, while morning and evening commutes wane
Some Americans are now tumbling out of bed and stumbling into work a little later than before, as 9-to-5 hours have been transformed by flexible working arrangements.
Indeed, the number of hourly trips taken by drivers in the US on an average weekday no longer follows the sharply defined spikes in traffic previously seen in the early morning and evening. Rather, they’ve flattened out dramatically, according to the 2023 Global Traffic Scorecard from INRIX, suggesting that working 10-to-4 — at least in the office — is increasingly normal.
With flexibility becoming more common in major cities, some of the typical “rush hour” traffic has shifted into the middle of the day, with trip counts for the entire AM and PM periods both declining 12% and 9%, respectively, from 2019. Instead, there is now a “midday rush hour”, established by the growing trend of workers coming into the office only if necessary (or, “coffee badging”, per CNBC).
The report found that car trips taken around noon rose a massive 23% from 2019 to 72 million — about the same as the whole evening commuting period, generally the most congested interval of the day.
The study also revealed that congestion cost the US more than $70 billion in 2023, and estimated that New York drivers were the most affected by traffic — losing 101 hours to delays last year.
