Summer time and the driving is easy. But not for long.

This month, more than 160,000 university and public and private school students — and the parents who drive them everywhere — will be back on the road, bringing an end to the annual summer break for motorists.

Based on previous years' experience, drivers can expect to add anywhere from five to 30 minutes to their daily commutes as first private schools, then community colleges and universities and the remaining public schools begin the fall term, transportation officials say.

One of the biggest back-to-school days this year will be Aug. 22, when more than 40,000 students at Chaminade University, University of Hawai'i-Manoa and community colleges across O'ahu begin classes, said Transportation Department spokesman Scott Ishikawa.

About 120,000 public school students will have returned to school by tomorrow, and the remaining 60,000 will return by Aug. 23, according to Department of Education spokesman Greg Knudsen.

An additional 62,000 students and private schools and colleges are scheduled to start classes in the coming weeks, Ishikawa said.

And this year there will be at least one new school starting up in one of the most congested areas: Mid-Pacific Institute is moving its elementary school — with 250 students — from Kaimuki to its Manoa campus.

"The No. 1 concern at the start of the year will be the traffic coming into Manoa, but we think we have a plan in place that can handle most of the problems," said Mid-Pacific President Joe Rice.

Rice said the school will stagger the starting hours for its elementary and secondary schools to avoid a crunch of new students arriving all at once on the two-lane O'ahu Avenue approach to campus.

It also will utilize an exit on Maile Way on the UH campus to keep traffic moving in a circular direction, and urge students to use public and private buses as well as carpools.

"One bus that brings in 50 or 60 students is a whole lot better than 50 cars," he said.

Residents in Manoa, where there have long been complaints about traffic and parking problems associated with UH students, said they're pleased that the school is working to alleviate potential problems.

"We're really happy that they listened to our concerns and came up with some solutions," said Nadine Nishioka, chairwoman of the Manoa Neighborhood Board. "But it's not only Mid-Pacific. We've got the university and two elementary schools with lots of out-of-district students bringing traffic into the area all the time. It always gets quite hectic, especially at the start of the year when you've got a lot of people who don't know their way around."

Helping the situation, Rice said, is that Mid-Pacific starts its school year Aug. 10, though the elementary school does not start until Aug. 15. That allows the school and parents to get the kinks out before UH opens.

"It's usually the first few days that are the worst," he said. "After that parents learn to adjust. They find out that if they come five minutes earlier or later than usual, they can often avoid the problems. You just can't have everybody waiting until the last minute to drop off their kids."

Under the new schedule, Mid-Pacific's elementary school students will begin at 7:30 a.m. Middle and high school students will start at 7:55 a.m., Rice said.