LA Evening Commute Considerably Worse Than Morning Drive, Study Finds

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) – Hardly news: That drive home from work in LA isn't fun.

And researchers have confirmed something most Angelenos probably already suspected: the drive in to work is generally faster than the drive home.

A study conducted by USC determined that morning commutes in 2017 were, on average, 14 percent faster than evening commutes in reverse. Furthermore, researchers found that almost 80 percent of commutes in L.A. were faster in the morning than the evening hours.

The study, a joint venture between the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and the Viterbi School of Engineering, looked at the 18 busiest freeways in L.A. for a full year.

To collect their data, researchers used inductive-loop traffic detectors, which are large black circles embedded in roadways which serve as sensors. There are about 9,300 of these inductive-loop sensors across L.A. County. The data is then fed into a USC-built system called Transdec.

The study found that the worst offender was the southbound 5 Freeway, between the 10 and 605 Freeways. That commute was on average 38 percent slower in the evening than the morning.

A close second was the southbound 405 Freeway between the 118 and 10 freeways, which was 37.8 percent slower in the evening.

The eastbound 10 Freeway between Santa Monica and the 5 Freeway was 36 percent slower, while the northbound 110 Freeway between the 105 and 101 freeways was 33 percent slower.

Rounding out the top five was the northbound 101 Freeway between the 5 Freeway and Topanga Canyon Boulevard, which was 29 percent slower in the evening compared to the morning.

According to researchers, a likely contributing factor to the slowdown is that in the evening, drivers have more things to do, which keeps them on the roads longer and creates more congestion, while in the morning, they tend to drive directly to work without making any stops.

For more information on the study, click here.