Australia’s slowest peak-hour commutes revealed

If you leave Manly at 8am on a Tuesday (which is apparently the worst day of the week), it will take you on average 50 minutes to get to the city. That’s averaging an agonising 18km/h.

The data was collected by Intelematic Australia, a subsidiary of the RACV, which took hundreds of millions of speed readings over a two-year period across Australia’s capital cities.

Motorists travelling from a little further north in Dee Why would not be surprised to know their trip is the second slowest in the country. The average speed at 7:30am on a Thursday is just 21km/h. The morning commute from Parramatta to the city is another killer in Sydney, with an average speed of just 25km/h.

The situation isn’t much better in Melbourne. The slowest peak-hour journey is from Thomastown to the CBD. The 17km trip takes 44 minutes in heavy traffic conditions, meaning you’ll be travelling at a snail’s pace average of 24km/h.

Trips from Box Hill (28km/h average), Mentone (31km/h) and the Melbourne Airport (36km/h) to the city were close behind as the slowest trips in Melbourne.

Further north, the slowest trip into the Brisbane CBD was the drive from Nudgee. In peak hour, it takes an average of 44 minutes, during which time your speedo will generally hover around the 23km/h-mark.

Surprisingly, you will hit some of the highest average speeds on the drive from the Gold Coast to the CBD. The average peak-hour speed on this trip is 47km/h, although as it is a 78km journey, the whole thing will take you one hour and 40 minutes.

In Adelaide, the slowest CBD commute is from Port Adelaide (24km/h, 33 minutes).

It appears drivers travelling into Perth have the best run in peak-hour. The slowest average speed from Fremantle to the CBD is a lightning 45km/h. The downside for Western Australians is that the trip home in the evening is on average longer than the trip to the CBD in the morning, which is in contrast to the rest of the country.

As a general guide across the country, Tuesday mornings are the slowest days to drive into your CBD, while Friday evenings are the slowest trips back home.

Do you agree with the findings, or do you know a slower trip? Feel free to vent in the comments section below.