ETA Calculator
Convert trip distance and speed into a simple duration and ETA sketch.
By Aryan Khan, Founder & Editor · Updated October 2026
For example, 340 miles at a 55 mph average is 6 hours 11 minutes — leave at 08:15 and the honest arrival is about 14:26, breaks not included.
How to use ETA Calculator
Arrival is departure plus distance-over-speed. See the working, then adjust it like an adult:
The ETA Calculator converts a trip's distance and your expected average speed into a duration and an estimated arrival time. Set the origin and destination, or enter the distance directly, and read the simple estimate — transparent arithmetic you can adjust with stops and judgement, not a black box.
- 1Set origin and destination or distance.
- 2Read estimated duration.
What people use ETA Calculator for
1. The 'when will you arrive?' answer
Families and hosts deserve a computed answer, not optimism. This estimate, plus your stated stops, is the answer that survives the journey.
2. Meeting and delivery windows
A window built from distance and a realistic average is a promise with a mechanism. The Driving Distance Calculator supplies the distance.
3. Multi-leg days
Chain the legs: each ETA is the next leg's departure. The day assembles itself honestly, leg by leg.
4. Checking a satnav's optimism
When the device's ETA assumes averages your roads will not give, this simple division with your average is the referee.
Worked examples
340 mi at 55 mph average = 6 h 11 min. Depart 08:15 → 14:26 rolling. Add a 30-minute lunch and the truthful text home is “about three.”
The same 340 miles at 45 mph (towns, towing, weather) = 7 h 33 min — arrival 15:48. Choosing the average is the whole skill; the calculator just refuses to hide it.
Distance at average speeds
Duration for common distances at steady averages — the inputs are averages over the whole journey, stops excluded.
| Distance | At 40 mph | At 55 mph | At 65 mph | At 100 km/h |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 100 mi | 2 h 30 m | 1 h 49 m | 1 h 32 m | 1 h 37 m |
| 250 mi | 6 h 15 m | 4 h 33 m | 3 h 51 m | 4 h 01 m |
| 340 mi | 8 h 30 m | 6 h 11 m | 5 h 14 m | 5 h 28 m |
| 600 mi | 15 h 00 m | 10 h 55 m | 9 h 14 m | 9 h 39 m |
| 1,000 mi | 25 h 00 m | 18 h 11 m | 15 h 23 m | 16 h 06 m |
Averages over a whole journey are lower than cruising speeds — towns, fuel and humanity all take their cut. Use your own completed journeys to calibrate.
How to interpret the result
The most common errors come from using a correct result to answer the wrong geographic question. Keep these points in mind for ETA Calculator:
- Add a congestion buffer to any free-flow travel time: 20–40% in peak urban areas is a sane rule of thumb, and the interface labels its times as free-flow for exactly this reason. For appointments, plan with the buffer; for physics, trust the raw number.
- Place route endpoints on roads, not rooftops. Routing engines snap points to the nearest drivable way, and a point in a river or a courtyard can snap somewhere surprising — nudging the pin to the nearest street makes results stable and explainable.
Limits & appropriate use
Routing's limits live in three places: data vintage, access reality and time modelling. The network is OpenStreetMap's current picture — new interchanges lag, private gates may be missing, seasonal ferries keep their own calendars. Access rules reflect mapped law, not today's roadworks. And durations are free-flow physics: speed limits and road classes without your city's sociology, so peak hours, weather and parking belong in your buffer, not in the engine's promise. The tools label all three limits on every result, because an unlabelled estimate is a trap.
What the stack does brilliantly is the reproducible core: the same stops, mode and engine give the same route to everyone, everywhere, which makes it a superb baseline for comparison, screening and planning. Escalation is domain-specific and well understood — professional dispatch adds live traffic and driver hours; logistics tenders add contracted networks; navigation products add certified maps. A free browser tool that hands you a clean, exportable baseline with its assumptions printed is not competing with those; it is feeding them.
- Live congestion and ETAs → traffic-aware commercial routing.
- Driver-hours and windows → transport-management systems.
- Certified navigation → licensed map products with update guarantees.
Data & methodology
The routing workspace requests a route duration for selected endpoints; it does not calculate a clock-time arrival from a departure time.
For source details, licences and model limitations, see Data Sources and Methodology.
Key terms worth knowing
- Costing model
- The routing engine's mode profile (auto, pedestrian, bicycle) with its speeds and rules.
- Free-flow time
- Travel time from speed limits and road classes, without congestion.
Editorial guidance: MapBench explains the method and limitations so the tool can be used as a transparent reference, not as a black-box answer. For legal boundaries, safety-critical routing, surveying, engineering, regulated decisions or official statistics, verify the result with the responsible authority or a qualified professional.
Category: Routing & Travel Time. Results are intended for everyday analysis and planning unless a page explicitly states otherwise.
Method, assumptions & limits
- This tool’s method
- The routing workspace requests a route duration for selected endpoints; it does not calculate a clock-time arrival from a departure time.
- Before relying on the answer
- Check the stop order, travel mode and whether the result is a network route or a simplified estimate. Repeat the calculation after changing any of these inputs.
- What the result cannot establish
- Road access, congestion and closures can change. An estimated duration is not a live arrival-time commitment.
Coverage: Worldwide. Search, basemap and external data requests may use third-party services; browser-based does not mean every operation is offline. Read the source and licence notes, calculation methodology and privacy policy. If a result looks inconsistent, report a correction with the inputs and mode used.
Frequently asked questions
Clear answers about the calculation, accuracy and appropriate use.
Live traffic?
No — uses routing estimates or your speed inputs, not live congestion.
Does the route include live traffic?
Unless the tool explicitly says otherwise, travel times are planning estimates and should not be treated as live-traffic predictions.
Why is road distance longer than straight-line distance?
Roads must follow the available network, terrain, bridges and restrictions, while straight-line distance measures the geometric minimum between two points.
Can route results change over time?
Yes. Road-network data, access restrictions and routing datasets can change, so recheck important journeys close to travel time.
Does it include live traffic?
No. This is distance ÷ your average speed — an estimate whose honesty comes from the average you choose. Live traffic is a navigation app's layer, not this calculation's.
Why is road distance longer than straight-line?
Roads wind. Use the road distance from the Driving Distance Calculator or your ETA inherits the crow's optimism.
Should stops be added?
Yes, on top of the rolling duration. The worked example adds lunch explicitly — make your stops explicit too.
What average speed should I use?
The one your similar completed journeys actually averaged — typically well below the speed limit once towns and stops bite. First time on a route, plan slower.
Can it handle kilometres?
Yes — km ÷ km/h gives hours identically. The table includes a 100 km/h column for the metric habit.
ETA or duration — which does it give?
Both: the duration from distance and speed, and the arrival clock time when you give a departure.
Related tools and resources
Distances come from the Driving Distance Calculator; multi-day arrivals belong to the Driving Days Calculator; and road-shaped reach is the Isochrone Map.
More free tools
Sources, methodology & editorial trust
- ✓ Browser-first processing where supported
- ✓ External sources are documented
- ✓ No account required for public tools
- ✓ Review data sources
Calculations are documented with their assumptions, limitations and source context rather than presented as unexplained answers.
Reviewed and maintained by Aryan Khan, Founder & Editor of MapBench.
Part of our routes & travel time hub
ETA Calculator sits in the routes & travel time cluster, alongside 62 other tools that answer neighbouring questions with different methods or datasets.
You may also need
When this answer is only part of the job, these clusters cover the next step.
Read the guide behind this tool
Radius vs. Drive Time vs. Straight-Line Distance: Which Map Should You Use? — A practical guide to choosing between a radius circle, road travel-time map and straight-line distance so your result matches the real question you are trying to answer.