Where to live so you both get to work fast

#What the second job does

The map was calculated for the whole city for ten places where many people work. Seven are the big office districts: Pipera, Floreasca – Barbu Văcărescu, Piața Victoriei, Universitate, Timpuri Noi, Orhideea – Politehnica and AFI Cotroceni. There are no public figures for how many people work in each, so every district and every pair counts the same. For a workplace in one of them, on average 21% of people in Bucharest and Ilfov live within 30 minutes. For two workplaces in two of them, the average falls to 9.6%, less than half.

Pipera and Floreasca – Barbu Văcărescu, in the north, are the hardest office districts to reach: 11% and 10% of people live within 30 minutes of them, against 30% for Universitate. If one of you works in Pipera and the other at Orhideea, 5.4% remain, about 125,000 people. If the other works next to Militari Shopping, there is nowhere in Bucharest or Ilfov from which you both get there in 30 minutes: from the most balanced spot, the longest trip takes 33 minutes.

At 45 minutes, the average for one office workplace is 60%, and for two, 50%. Each district is a single point, placed on a building in OpenStreetMap: Pipera (Globalworth Campus A–C), Floreasca – Barbu Văcărescu (Globalworth Tower / Sky Tower), Băneasa (Băneasa Business & Technology Park), Piața Victoriei (Palatul Victoria), Universitate (Universitatea din București), Timpuri Noi (Timpuri Noi Square), Orhideea – Politehnica (Orhideea Towers), AFI Cotroceni (AFI Cotroceni), Militari (Militari Shopping), Fundeni (Institutul Clinic Fundeni).

#What the map misses

The timetable is not the traffic

The times come from the official timetable, not from what happens on the street; there is no public archive of actual trips for today’s Bucharest. In the 2026 timetable, STB buses average 16.7 km/h; in its 2020–2030 strategy, STB reported an average operating speed of 12.9 km/h for 2019. The years differ and the strategy does not say exactly what the average includes, so the gap cannot all be put down to traffic; it only shows that the timetable can be optimistic (the comparison is in Viteza liniei). A bus trip can take longer than the map shows. The metro does not sit in traffic.

Trains are missing

The metropolitan timetable does not include CFR and private rail services, such as Gara de Nord – Otopeni Airport or the trains to Chitila and Buftea. Near a railway station, the trip can be shorter than the map shows.

Mornings only, one way only

The map uses departures between 7:30 and 8:30 on weekdays. The journey home in the evening may take more or less time. The map does not calculate trips by car or bicycle.

Places without a stop

Going by the streets and paths in OpenStreetMap, about 30,000 people in Bucharest and Ilfov (1.3%) have no stop within a 20-minute walk. Their places light up on the map only when the workplace is close enough to walk to.

How precise the point is

Each of the ten points above was moved 100 and 200 metres in four directions. The times changed by at most 3.8 minutes on average, about the extra walk. Near the chosen limit, a few minutes matter: where many people live 28–32 minutes away, the percentage can change a lot. For a particular place, search for its exact address.

#How the map was calculated

The timetable. The GTFS file published by the Bucharest-Ilfov Intercommunity Development Association for Public Transport (TPBI), version 6.41 of 7 October 2026, valid until 5 January 2027: STB (the city operator), Metrorex and the Ilfov operators (STV, STCM, Regio Serv). From the weekday service, the 7,783 trips running between 6:30 and 10:30 on 176 lines were kept. The metro timetable gives times at only a few stations of each trip; at the others, times were estimated from the distance.

The fastest trip. For each of the 4,259 stops and every departure, every two minutes between 7:30 and 8:30, the fastest trip to every other stop was calculated, with at most five vehicles and one minute for each change (the RAPTOR algorithm). Boarding uses the departure time at the stop, alighting the arrival time. The normal time between two stops is the median of the 30 departures; the “unlucky morning” is the 24th fastest of 30.

From home to work. For each square, the time is the walk to a nearby stop, plus the normal time to a stop near work, plus the walk to work; the shortest combination is kept. It is an approximation: the median is taken on the trip between stops, not on the whole trip from home. The most balanced spot is the square with at least 20 residents where the longest of the trips is shortest.

On foot. On OpenStreetMap streets and paths, at 4.8 km/h: up to 20 minutes from home to the stop and from the stop to work, and walking changes between stops up to 500 metres. For each 200 by 200 metre square, the map keeps the nearest stops that add a new line, at most ten, so that a metro entrance is not lost among bus stops. When the workplace is close, the direct walk also counts (the straight line plus 30%).

People. The GHS-POP estimate for 2020 (European Commission Joint Research Centre), at about 90 metres, summed into 200-metre squares: 2,304,412 residents in Bucharest and Ilfov. It is an estimate, not the census.

A few metro trips from the timetable. Pipera – Berceni, 29 minutes including the wait; Râul Doamnei – Eroilor, 19 minutes.

#Sources

• TPBI, Bucharest-Ilfov public transport timetable in GTFS, gtfs.tpbi.ro, version 6.41 of 7 October 2026 (STB, Metrorex, STV, STCM, Regio Serv; produced by FlashWeb IT). The file states no licence; this page publishes only times calculated from it, not the timetable.
• OpenStreetMap: streets, paths, addresses, buildings and neighbourhood names, © OpenStreetMap contributors, ODbL; Geofabrik extract of 30 October 2026.
• GHS-POP R2023A, 2020 epoch, 3 arc-seconds: European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), Global Human Settlement Layer, CC BY 4.0. Processed: summed into 200 m squares.
• Administrative boundaries: ANCPI (Romania’s cadastre agency), processed by geo-spatial.org, version of 26 March 2025, CC BY 4.0. Processed: simplified for the map.
• STB SA, Strategy 2020–2030, the 2019 average operating speed, quoted through Viteza liniei.

A page by Marius Comper, published on 1 November 2026.