Vance County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Vance County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Vance County spend about 41 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 169 hours, about 7.1 full days, spent commuting. That is 7% less time on the road than the North Carolina average of 21.9 minutes each way, a difference of 1.5 minutes.

Vance County holds about 0.4% of North Carolina's population and accounts for roughly 0.4% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Vance County would save about 68 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,099 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)
Vance County	20.3 min	40.6 min	169 hrs/yr	$5,247	884
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

N

On average, it takes 20.3 minutes to get to work in Vance County. That's 9% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 71% of counties in North Carolina

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 06:00 AM – 06:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 8.8% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Vance County

• Car: 89.0%
• Worked at Home: 8.8%
• Walked: 1.3%
• Other: 0.7%
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Vance County, versus 0.1% in North Carolina.

Public transit is unusually rare in Vance County: 8.1 times less than the North Carolina average (0.1% vs 0.7%).

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Vance County, versus 0.2% in North Carolina.

Biking is essentially absent in Vance County, versus 0.2% in North Carolina.

Commute Mode Trends in Vance County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Vance 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
• Taxi
• Motorcycle
• Bicycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	93.6%	3.6%	1.0%	1.6%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2010	93.9%	2.8%	1.4%	1.5%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2011	95.1%	2.3%	1.5%	0.7%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2012	95.9%	1.6%	1.4%	0.8%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2013	95.3%	1.6%	2.1%	0.7%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2014	95.3%	2.0%	2.2%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	95.6%	1.8%	2.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	95.2%	1.8%	2.4%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%
2017	94.2%	2.9%	2.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%
2018	93.7%	4.2%	1.0%	0.5%	0.0%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%
2019	94.2%	3.9%	0.9%	0.6%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2020	92.2%	6.0%	1.0%	0.7%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2021	91.1%	6.9%	0.7%	1.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2022	89.1%	8.5%	1.4%	1.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	88.8%	9.2%	1.4%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	89.0%	8.8%	1.3%	0.7%	0.1%	0.0%	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 2012 at 95.9% and lowest in 2023 at 88.8%. Overall it fell from 93.6% in 2009 to 89.0% in 2024, down 4.6 percentage points.

Working from home gained the most ground in Vance County: its share of workers rose from 3.6% in 2009 to 8.8% in 2024, up 5.2 percentage points. Most of that increase, 4.9 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking peaked at 2.4% in 2016 and has since fallen back to 1.3%.

Commute Start Times in Vance County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Vance County?

The bars show when commuters in Vance 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 Vance County4.9% North Carolina4.4%	4.9%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Vance County4.9% North Carolina3.5%	4.9%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Vance County6.8% North Carolina4.6%	6.8%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Vance County11.3% North Carolina9.0%	11.3%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Vance County8.3% North Carolina10.2%	8.3%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Vance County16.7% North Carolina15.3%	16.7%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Vance County10.3% North Carolina12.8%	10.3%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Vance County8.8% North Carolina11.7%	8.8%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Vance County4.1% North Carolina5.4%	4.1%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Vance County2.5% North Carolina6.4%	2.5%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Vance County2.2% North Carolina2.8%	2.2%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Vance County0.4% North Carolina1.4%	0.4%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Vance County9.4% North Carolina6.3%	9.4%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Vance County9.4% North Carolina6.4%	9.4%

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

The busiest time to head out in Vance County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 16.7% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.3% across North Carolina. Early starts are more common than in North Carolina: 16.6% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 12.5% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in North Carolina: 44.1% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 50.0% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (23.9%) 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 Vance 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 Vance 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 Vance 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.

• Vance County
• North Carolina
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Vance County	North Carolina	United States
2009	7:16 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:20 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:20 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:22 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:22 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:21 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:23 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:24 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:29 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:32 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:29 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:31 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:29 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:24 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:27 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:25 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Vance County were on the road by 7:25 AM, 9 minutes later than in 2009 (7:16 AM). The shift is sharper than across North Carolina, where the typical start moved 1 minute later. Commuters in Vance County now leave 13 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 Vance County has moved 4 minutes earlier.

How does Vance County's commute time compare?

Metric	Vance County	North Carolina	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	20.3 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	06:00 AM – 06:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	8.8%	16.3%	15.0%
Walked	1.3%	1.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Vance County is 20.3 minutes, shorter than the 21.9 minutes in North Carolina.

0.1% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.7% in North Carolina. 1.3% commute by walking, lower than the 1.6% in North Carolina.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau