Covington County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Covington County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Covington County spend about 38 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 156 hours, about 6.5 full days, spent commuting. That is 15% less time on the road than the Alabama average of 22.1 minutes each way, a difference of 3.4 minutes.

Covington County holds about 0.7% of Alabama's population but accounts for roughly 0.6% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Covington County would save about 63 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,938 at the same national wage assumption used above.

Area	One-Way Commute	Daily Round-Trip	Yearly Time Spent	Estimated Yearly Cost	Local Road Traffic (VPD)
Covington County	18.8 min	37.5 min	156 hrs/yr	$4,845	476
Alabama	22.1 min	44.3 min	184 hrs/yr	$5,717	1,193
United States	22.4 min	44.8 min	187 hrs/yr	$5,790	1,355

The estimated yearly cost applies a single national rule of thumb (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics average hourly earnings), not a measurement of wages in this area - treat it as a rough estimate, not a paycheck figure. Local road traffic counts, vehicles per day on non-highway roads, come from proprietary Ticon and TrafficZoom data.

Commute Time Map: Alabama Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

N

On average, it takes 18.8 minutes to get to work in Covington County. That's 16% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 91% of counties in Alabama

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 2.9% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Covington County

• Car: 94.5%
• Worked at Home: 2.9% unusually low
• Other: 1.7%
• Walked: 0.8%
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1%
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Public transit is unusually rare in Covington County: 3.1 times less than the Alabama average (0.1% vs 0.3%).

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Covington County, versus 0.1% in Alabama.

Working from home is unusually rare in Covington County: 3.1 times less than the Alabama average (2.9% vs 8.8%).

Biking is essentially absent in Covington County, versus 0.1% in Alabama.

Commute Mode Trends in Covington County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Covington County get to work, as a share of all workers aged 16 and over, across 16 U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey (ACS) releases from 2009 to 2024. Each release is a 5-year estimate: the 2024 figures cover surveys taken from 2020 to 2024. Because neighboring releases share most of their survey years, the lines move gradually, and a sudden change such as the rise of remote work in 2020 spreads across several releases. Hover over or tap a line to highlight it, and use the legend to show or hide a mode. Driving starts hidden so the smaller modes stay readable.

• Car
• Worked at Home
• Other
• Walked
• Public Transportation
• Motorcycle
• Taxi
• Bicycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Other	Walked	Public Transportation	Motorcycle	Taxi	Bicycle
2009	92.0%	2.4%	3.2%	2.2%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2010	91.2%	2.8%	3.9%	1.9%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2011	90.6%	2.5%	4.3%	2.4%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2012	92.5%	1.9%	3.0%	2.2%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2013	93.1%	2.1%	2.4%	1.9%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2014	93.7%	1.9%	2.2%	1.5%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.2%
2015	94.2%	2.2%	1.5%	1.5%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%
2016	95.2%	1.8%	1.3%	1.0%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%
2017	95.4%	1.9%	1.1%	1.1%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%
2018	95.6%	1.6%	1.3%	1.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.2%
2019	96.5%	1.4%	1.2%	0.7%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2020	96.4%	1.2%	1.0%	1.2%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2021	95.7%	1.6%	1.0%	1.6%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2022	95.5%	2.3%	1.2%	0.9%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2023	95.6%	2.5%	0.9%	0.9%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	94.5%	2.9%	1.7%	0.8%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share was highest in 2019 at 96.5% and lowest in 2011 at 90.6%. Overall it rose from 92.0% in 2009 to 94.5% in 2024, up 2.5 percentage points. It has fallen in the latest release.

Working from home gained the most ground in Covington County: its share of workers rose from 2.4% in 2009 to 2.9% in 2024, up 0.5 percentage points. Most of that increase, 1.5 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 2.2% to 0.8% of workers (down 1.4 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Covington County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Covington County?

The bars show when commuters in Covington County leave home for work, as a share of everyone who commutes (people who work from home are not counted), from the 2024 ACS 5-year estimates. The thin violet marks show Alabama for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Covington County8.1% Alabama6.8%	8.1%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Covington County5.3% Alabama5.1%	5.3%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Covington County5.4% Alabama5.9%	5.4%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Covington County9.9% Alabama9.9%	9.9%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Covington County12.6% Alabama11.3%	12.6%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Covington County19.7% Alabama16.8%	19.7%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Covington County12.5% Alabama11.8%	12.5%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Covington County9.4% Alabama8.6%	9.4%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Covington County2.6% Alabama3.5%	2.6%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Covington County1.7% Alabama4.6%	1.7%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Covington County1.5% Alabama2.2%	1.5%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Covington County0.6% Alabama1.0%	0.6%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Covington County4.9% Alabama6.3%	4.9%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Covington County5.8% Alabama6.2%	5.8%

Covington County Alabama Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Covington County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 19.7% of commuters leave home, compared with 16.8% across Alabama. Early starts are about as common as in Alabama: 18.8% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 17.9% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Alabama: 54.2% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 48.6% there. About 1 in 7 commuters (14.5%) leave at 9 AM or later, which usually points to shift work, flexible hours or part-time jobs.

When people leave matters as much as how far they go. Rush-hour traffic shrinks how much ground a 20-minute trip covers, so a trade area drawn as a simple circle often takes in neighborhoods that customers or staff would never drive from and misses others that are an easy trip. A drive-time zone, also called an isochrone, outlines every place within a set number of minutes of an address, which makes it the more honest way to size a store's catchment, a hiring area or the commute from a new home.

See it for yourself on the interactive map: click any spot in Covington County, pick a 5, 10, 15 or 30-minute drive and see the local demographics of the people who live within that exact drive time.

Is Covington County Waking Up Earlier? Typical Departure Time, 2009-2024

Each line follows the typical (median) departure time: the moment by which half of commuters have already left home. Higher on the chart means a later start. Setting Covington County next to Alabama and the U.S. shows whether local mornings are drifting earlier or later than everyone else's. The figures span 16 ACS 5-year releases, so changes build up gradually rather than jumping from one year to the next.

• Covington County
• Alabama
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Covington County	Alabama	United States
2009	7:18 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:20 AM	7:20 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:19 AM	7:20 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:17 AM	7:20 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:17 AM	7:21 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:16 AM	7:21 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:16 AM	7:21 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:17 AM	7:21 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:18 AM	7:21 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:17 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:17 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:21 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:19 AM	7:21 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:19 AM	7:20 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:18 AM	7:20 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:13 AM	7:19 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Covington County were on the road by 7:13 AM, 4 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:18 AM). Across Alabama, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Covington County now leave 25 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in Covington County has moved 4 minutes earlier. The 2024 release is the earliest typical start for Covington County in the whole series.

How does Covington County's commute time compare?

Metric	Covington County	Alabama	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	18.8 min	22.1 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	06:30 AM – 06:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	2.9%	8.8%	15.0%
Walked	0.8%	1.1%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.3%	3.2%

The average commute time in Covington County is 18.8 minutes, shorter than the 22.1 minutes in Alabama.

0.1% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.3% in Alabama. 0.8% commute by walking, lower than the 1.1% in Alabama.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau