History · North Dakota
Pembina-Emerson border wait time history
What ten years of hourly CBSA readings show about waits into Canada at Pembina-Emerson, labelled as pre-2020 data.
Pre-2020 data. This is the CBSA’s published hourly series for Canada-bound travellers at Emerson, from 2010-03-31 to 2020-03-31. It shows a pattern by weekday and hour, not today’s waits: traffic, staffing and lanes have changed since 2020.
What the ten years show
The series has 86712 readings of the passenger-vehicle wait at Pembina-Emerson, one roughly every hour. In 99% of the 168 weekday-hour slots the median reading was 0 minutes, so the median alone hides the busy periods; the 90th percentile (one reading in ten was this long or longer) shows them. Over April 2010 to March 2020, Sunday 00:00 had the lowest median passenger-vehicle wait (0 min, 464 readings); Sunday 17:00 the highest (5 min, 518 readings).
By weekday
| Day | Average of hourly medians | Average 90th percentile | Peak hour (90th percentile) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sunday | 0 min | 10 min | 17:00 (30 min) |
| Monday | 0 min | 6 min | 17:00 (20 min) |
| Tuesday | 0 min | 4 min | 13:00 (10 min) |
| Wednesday | 0 min | 4 min | 13:00 (10 min) |
| Thursday | 0 min | 4 min | 12:00 (10 min) |
| Friday | 0 min | 6 min | 16:00 (15 min) |
| Saturday | 0 min | 5 min | 11:00 (10 min) |
Recorded readings since 2026
Since October 2026 we also record the live CBP and CBSA figures every 30 minutes. Our own weekday-by-hour chart replaces the pre-2020 pattern here once at least 28 days exist; until then the live panel on the Pembina-Emerson wait page is the current figure.
How to use this
Use the pattern to choose a day and hour, not to predict a number. For the hour-by-hour grid and the best windows see best time to cross Pembina-Emerson. Data: CBSA historical border wait times, 2010–2020, published under the Open Government Licence - Canada, via our recorder.