How Long Are NYC Taxi and Uber Trips? Distance & Time Data

In short: Most NYC trips are short. In TLC trip records for September 2025 – August 2026, half of yellow taxi trips were under 2 miles (median 1.93 miles, 14.3 minutes). Uber and Lyft trips run longer: median 2.88 miles and 16.1 minutes, and 12.7% of app trips were 10 miles or more. Weekday afternoon traffic is the slowest — yellow trips averaged only 9.3 mph from 3pm.

Distances are passenger miles: trip_distance from the taxi meter and trip_miles from the app companies. Times run from pickup to drop-off. We used 298 million trips after removing impossible records (under 1 minute, over 4 hours, 0 or 150+ miles).

Averages and medians

The full distance distribution

Yellow taxis are a short-trip business: 20.7% of their trips are under 1 mile and 30.5% are 1–2 miles. App trips are spread more evenly: the largest band is still 1–2 miles (24.6%), but 5–10 mile trips (18.3%) are almost as common.

The time distribution

About 2% of trips in every sector last an hour or more. The most common length is 5–15 minutes.

By pickup borough

Yellow trips from Queens are long because most of them start at JFK and LaGuardia. Outside Manhattan, app trips are short local rides, while the fewer yellow pickups there tend to be longer. Staten Island had too few yellow trips to show.

Airport trips

Airport trips are the long, valuable end of the market. A trip from JFK is about 17 miles for both taxis and apps, and takes about 42–43 minutes at the median — almost three times a typical city trip. LaGuardia is about half the distance. Trips to JFK by app (40.5 minutes) were a little quicker than trips from JFK (43.0), and app trips to LaGuardia (26.0 minutes) much quicker than trips from it (32.6); the data does not say why.

Speed by hour (weekdays)

From 10am to 6pm, yellow trips average about 10 mph or less (9.3 mph at 3pm), slower than the meter's 12 mph switch point. The fastest trips are between 2am and 5am, when both sectors average around 19–24 mph. App trips were faster than yellow trips at every hour; more of them start outside Manhattan (see the borough table).

Median vs average

The median is the middle trip: half are shorter, half are longer. The average adds up all miles and divides by trips, so a few 20-mile airport runs pull it up. For yellow taxis the average (3.54 miles) is almost twice the median (1.93). When someone quotes an "average taxi trip," ask which one they mean; the median is closer to what a driver sees on a normal shift.

Why length matters for pay

• Taxi meter: $3.00 to start, then 70 cents per 1/5 mile when moving above 12 mph, or per 60 seconds in slow traffic or when stopped (TLC taxi fare, as of 2026-10-12). Below 12 mph the meter charges by time, so slow daytime traffic still earns.
• App minimum pay: $1.283 per mile + $0.681 per minute (non-WAV, from March 1, 2026; TLC). On a 2-mile, 15-minute trip, the minutes bring $10.22 of the $12.78 minimum — 80%. Short, slow trips are paid mostly for time; long highway trips mostly for distance.

How pay changes with trip length: pay per trip, mile and minute.

More: fare components, yellow fare per trip, taxi vs Uber fares, busiest hours, trips per taxi per day, trip statistics overview and the money hub.