Rocky Mount Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Rocky Mount, North Carolina: how long it takes, when people leave home and how they get to work. Ask Map AI about any address.

You 9/24/26, 4:14 PM

What does a typical morning commute look like in Rocky Mount?

Map AI 9/24/26, 4:14 PM

Commute Time Burden in Rocky Mount: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Rocky Mount spend about 34 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 141 hours, about 5.9 full days, spent commuting. That is 23% less time on the road than the North Carolina average of 21.9 minutes each way, a difference of 5.0 minutes.

Rocky Mount holds about 0.4% of North Carolina's population but accounts for roughly 0.3% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Rocky Mount would save about 56 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,745 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)
Rocky Mount	16.9 min	33.8 min	141 hrs/yr	$4,362	1,615
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.

Rocky Mount Commute Map

On average, it takes 16.9 minutes to get to work in Rocky Mount. That's 25% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 7.4% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Rocky Mount

Walking is unusually rare in Rocky Mount: 3.2 times less than the North Carolina average (0.5% vs 1.6%).

Taking a taxi is unusually common in Rocky Mount: 7.9 times more than the North Carolina average (1.4% vs 0.2%).

Biking is unusually rare in Rocky Mount: 61.2 times less than the North Carolina average (0.0% vs 0.2%).

Few people walk or bike to work in Rocky Mount: just 0.5%, 3.5 times below the North Carolina average of 1.8%.

Commute Mode Trends in Rocky Mount, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Rocky Mount 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.

Share of workers aged 16 and over, by ACS 5-year release year. Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Taxi	Other	Public Transportation	Walked	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	94.1%	1.8%	0.1%	0.8%	1.3%	1.5%	0.3%	0.1%
2010	94.1%	2.0%	0.4%	0.5%	1.6%	1.1%	0.2%	0.2%
2011	94.0%	2.1%	0.4%	0.5%	1.8%	0.9%	0.2%	0.2%
2012	94.1%	2.4%	0.5%	0.6%	1.3%	0.7%	0.3%	0.2%
2013	93.7%	2.4%	0.5%	0.6%	1.1%	1.3%	0.3%	0.0%
2014	93.5%	2.5%	0.5%	0.9%	1.0%	1.5%	0.1%	0.0%
2015	92.4%	2.6%	0.1%	1.5%	1.0%	2.1%	0.4%	0.0%
2016	92.9%	2.3%	0.0%	1.8%	0.6%	2.1%	0.3%	0.0%
2017	92.4%	2.8%	0.0%	2.0%	0.6%	1.9%	0.4%	0.0%
2018	92.6%	3.4%	0.1%	1.7%	0.4%	1.5%	0.3%	0.0%
2019	92.8%	3.7%	0.1%	1.4%	0.2%	1.5%	0.4%	0.0%
2020	93.7%	3.0%	0.1%	1.6%	0.6%	0.8%	0.1%	0.0%
2021	91.7%	4.4%	1.1%	1.7%	0.6%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%
2022	91.2%	5.0%	1.0%	1.7%	0.5%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%
2023	89.7%	6.4%	1.3%	1.3%	0.5%	0.6%	0.2%	0.0%
2024	88.8%	7.4%	1.4%	1.1%	0.6%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share fell from 94.1% in 2009 to 88.8% in 2024, down 5.3 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 4 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Rocky Mount: its share of workers rose from 1.8% in 2009 to 7.4% in 2024, up 5.6 percentage points. Most of that increase, 3.7 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 1.5% to 0.5% of workers (down 1.0 percentage points).

Taking a taxi overtook public transit to become the 3rd most common choice in the 2021 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Rocky Mount

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Rocky Mount?

The bars show when commuters in Rocky Mount 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		4.8%
5:00-5:29 AM		2.8%
5:30-5:59 AM		3.4%
6:00-6:29 AM		9.9%
6:30-6:59 AM		7.6%
7:00-7:29 AM		14.8%
7:30-7:59 AM		10.2%
8:00-8:29 AM		11.4%
8:30-8:59 AM		3.4%
9:00-9:59 AM		9.3%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.3%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.8%
12:00-3:59 PM		7.7%
4:00-11:59 PM		10.6%

Rocky Mount North Carolina Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Rocky Mount is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 14.8% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.3% across North Carolina. Early starts are less common than in North Carolina: 11.1% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 12.5% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in North Carolina: 44.0% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 50.0% there. About 1 in 3 commuters (31.7%) 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 Rocky Mount, 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 Rocky Mount 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 Rocky Mount 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.

Median time commuters leave home, by ACS 5-year release year. Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Rocky Mount	North Carolina	United States
2009	7:52 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:50 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:49 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:51 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:52 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:49 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:46 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:47 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:39 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:41 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:37 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:45 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:42 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:46 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:47 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:49 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Rocky Mount were on the road by 7:49 AM, 3 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:52 AM). That goes against the trend across North Carolina, where the typical commuter now leaves 1 minute later than in 2009. Commuters in Rocky Mount now leave 12 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in Rocky Mount has moved 12 minutes later.

How does Rocky Mount's commute time compare?

Metric	Rocky Mount	North Carolina	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	16.9 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	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	7.4%	16.3%	15.0%
Walked	0.5%	1.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.6%	0.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Rocky Mount is 16.9 minutes, shorter than the 21.9 minutes in North Carolina.

0.6% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.7% in North Carolina. 0.5% commute by walking, lower than the 1.6% in North Carolina.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Rocky Mount, North Carolina.

How much does the average commute cost workers in Rocky Mount, North Carolina?

Commuters here spend an estimated 141 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $4,362 at a typical national wage. That's 23% less than the typical North Carolina commuter spends.

When is rush hour worst in Rocky Mount, North Carolina?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 08:00 AM – 08:29 AM also sees a secondary bump.