Alamance County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Alamance County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Alamance County spend about 45 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 188 hours, about 7.8 full days, spent commuting. That is 3% more time on the road than the North Carolina average of 21.9 minutes each way, a difference of 0.7 minutes.

Alamance County holds about 1.6% of North Carolina's population but accounts for roughly 1.7% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Alamance County would save about 75 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,335 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)
Alamance County	22.6 min	45.2 min	188 hrs/yr	$5,836	1,700
North Carolina	21.9 min	43.7 min	182 hrs/yr	$5,645	1,609
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: North Carolina Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 22.6 minutes to get to work in Alamance County. That's 1% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 11.3% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Alamance County

• Car: 86.1%
• Worked at Home: 11.3%
• Walked: 1.6%
• Other: 0.7%
• Public Transportation: 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: 0.1%
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Public transit is unusually rare in Alamance County: 4.4 times less than the North Carolina average (0.1% vs 0.7%).

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in Alamance County: 16.4 times less than the North Carolina average (0.0% vs 0.2%).

Biking is unusually rare in Alamance County: 5.3 times less than the North Carolina average (0.0% vs 0.2%).

Commute Mode Trends in Alamance County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Alamance 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
• Walked
• Other
• Public Transportation
• Motorcycle
• Taxi
• Bicycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Public Transportation	Motorcycle	Taxi	Bicycle
2009	95.2%	2.5%	1.4%	0.5%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2010	94.7%	3.0%	1.5%	0.5%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2011	93.9%	3.6%	1.4%	0.6%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2012	93.9%	3.7%	1.2%	0.6%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2013	93.9%	3.7%	1.2%	0.8%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2014	93.5%	3.8%	1.2%	1.0%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2015	93.7%	3.4%	1.4%	1.0%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2016	94.5%	2.7%	1.5%	0.9%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2017	94.4%	2.9%	1.3%	0.9%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2018	94.6%	3.0%	1.3%	0.7%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2019	94.5%	3.3%	1.5%	0.5%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2020	93.7%	4.4%	1.0%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2021	92.4%	6.1%	0.7%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	89.6%	8.4%	1.1%	0.6%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	88.5%	9.2%	1.4%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2024	86.1%	11.3%	1.6%	0.7%	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. Overall its share fell from 95.2% in 2009 to 86.1% in 2024, down 9.1 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 6 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Alamance County: its share of workers rose from 2.5% in 2009 to 11.3% in 2024, up 8.8 percentage points. Most of that increase, 8.0 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in Alamance County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Alamance County?

The bars show when commuters in Alamance 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 North Carolina for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Alamance County5.2% North Carolina4.4%	5.2%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Alamance County3.7% North Carolina3.5%	3.7%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Alamance County4.3% North Carolina4.6%	4.3%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Alamance County7.7% North Carolina9.0%	7.7%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Alamance County11.6% North Carolina10.2%	11.6%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Alamance County15.5% North Carolina15.3%	15.5%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Alamance County13.5% North Carolina12.8%	13.5%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Alamance County10.8% North Carolina11.7%	10.8%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Alamance County4.7% North Carolina5.4%	4.7%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Alamance County4.4% North Carolina6.4%	4.4%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Alamance County2.5% North Carolina2.8%	2.5%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Alamance County1.1% North Carolina1.4%	1.1%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Alamance County7.3% North Carolina6.3%	7.3%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Alamance County7.6% North Carolina6.4%	7.6%

Alamance County North Carolina Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Alamance County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 15.5% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.3% across North Carolina. Early starts are about as common as in North Carolina: 13.3% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 12.5% there. The morning rush looks much like North Carolina's: 51.4% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 50.0% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (22.9%) 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 Alamance 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 Alamance 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 Alamance County next to North Carolina 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.

• Alamance County
• North Carolina
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Alamance County	North Carolina	United States
2009	7:38 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:38 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:37 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:38 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:37 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:36 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:36 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:37 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:35 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:34 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:33 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:32 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:30 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:32 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:35 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:34 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Alamance County were on the road by 7:34 AM, 4 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:38 AM). That goes against the trend across North Carolina, where the typical commuter now leaves 1 minute later than in 2009. Commuters in Alamance County now leave 4 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 Alamance County has moved 2 minutes later.

How does Alamance County's commute time compare?

Metric	Alamance County	North Carolina	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	22.6 min	21.9 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	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	11.3%	16.3%	15.0%
Walked	1.6%	1.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.1%	0.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Alamance County is 22.6 minutes, longer than the 21.9 minutes in North Carolina.

0.1% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.7% in North Carolina. The share of commuters using walking is about the same as North Carolina.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau