The daily commuting dynamics of the Greater Toronto Area: an opening for workplace carpooling

The car rules the Toronto commute

According to the 2021 Census, roughly 73.8% of the nearly 1.5 million workers whose home and workplace were both inside the Toronto census metropolitan area (CMA) commuted by car, truck or van.

The most telling number for carpooling: nearly 85% of those car commuters were driving alone. In other words, the large majority of available seats on the daily commute sit empty.

The trip is not trivial either. In 2021, the Toronto CMA had the longest average commute among Canada’s three largest regions at 29.8 minutes, down from 34 minutes in 2016, but still the highest. By May 2025, Toronto still had the country’s longest average commute at 34.9 minutes.

Municipality by municipality: the same driving reflex

In Mississauga in 2021, 74.3% of workers drove alone to work and 8.4% travelled as passengers — while public-transit’s share fell from 18.1% (2016) to 11.4% (2021).

In Brampton, car dependence is even higher: 77.0% solo drivers and 8.9% passengers in 2021, as public transit slipped from 14.0% to 10.3%.

The pattern intensifies for commuters entering Toronto from the outer rings: the automobile share reached 90.8% from Oshawa, 93% from Hamilton, 96.0% from Guelph, 93.3% from Kitchener–Cambridge–Waterloo, and as high as 97.0% from Barrie.

After the pandemic: less transit, more cars

Between 2016 and 2021, the trend is clear across the GTA: public transit’s share dropped and solo driving rose. In both Mississauga and Brampton, driving alone gained ground while transit lost it.

The passenger (carpool) share remains modest, but it grew in the Peel region between 2016 and 2021. A signal that when a simple option exists, people take it. Nationally, in May 2025, 80.9% of commuters travelled by car, with 75.1% driving alone and only 5.8% riding as passengers.

Why this dynamic opens the door to workplace carpooling

When 3 in 4 workers drive alone to the same business park, hospital, plant or distribution centre, the consequences are direct: crowded parking, high build-out costs for the employer, and avoidable emissions.

This is exactly the space CarpoolWork occupies. Instead of leaving everyone to sort out their own trip, the employer runs a program: coworkers who live nearby form groups of 2 to 4 and take turns driving. The driver of the day confirms the carpool in a single tap, and the trip is logged automatically for the whole group.

The model is employer-paid (free for employees), billed only on participants who are actually active, and built for the recurring commute not ride-hailing or long distances. In a region where solo driving is the near universal norm, turning even a fraction of those empty seats into shared rides means dozens fewer vehicles in the lot each day.