Sumter County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Sumter County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Sumter County spend about 36 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 151 hours, about 6.3 full days, spent commuting. That is 18% less time on the road than the South Carolina average of 22.3 minutes each way, a difference of 4.1 minutes.

Sumter County holds about 2.0% of South Carolina's population but accounts for roughly 1.6% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Sumter County would save about 61 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,877 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)
Sumter County	18.2 min	36.3 min	151 hrs/yr	$4,692	902
South Carolina	22.3 min	44.5 min	186 hrs/yr	$5,753	1,499
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: South Carolina Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 18.2 minutes to get to work in Sumter County. That's 19% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Among the top 3 fastest counties in South Carolina

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 4.5% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Sumter County

• Car: 92.9%
• Worked at Home: 4.5%
• Walked: 1.2%
• Other: 1.0%
• Public Transportation: 0.2%
• Motorcycle: 0.1%
• Bicycle: 0.1%
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in Sumter County: 14.2 times less than the South Carolina average (0.0% vs 0.2%).

Commute Mode Trends in Sumter County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Sumter 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
• Bicycle
• Taxi

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Public Transportation	Motorcycle	Bicycle	Taxi
2009	95.2%	1.6%	1.3%	0.5%	0.6%	0.1%	0.2%	0.4%
2010	95.0%	1.7%	1.7%	0.6%	0.5%	0.1%	0.2%	0.3%
2011	94.4%	1.8%	2.0%	0.7%	0.5%	0.1%	0.2%	0.4%
2012	94.7%	1.8%	1.7%	0.6%	0.4%	0.1%	0.3%	0.4%
2013	95.3%	1.7%	1.7%	0.6%	0.2%	0.1%	0.3%	0.2%
2014	94.6%	1.8%	1.9%	0.7%	0.3%	0.2%	0.2%	0.2%
2015	94.6%	1.7%	2.0%	0.9%	0.3%	0.2%	0.2%	0.2%
2016	94.5%	1.7%	2.2%	1.0%	0.3%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%
2017	94.8%	1.8%	2.0%	0.8%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2018	94.7%	1.9%	1.8%	0.9%	0.3%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2019	94.0%	2.3%	2.2%	1.0%	0.2%	0.1%	0.3%	0.0%
2020	93.8%	2.4%	1.9%	1.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.3%	0.0%
2021	93.7%	3.1%	1.7%	0.9%	0.2%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2022	93.0%	4.0%	1.5%	1.0%	0.2%	0.1%	0.3%	0.1%
2023	92.4%	4.5%	1.5%	1.1%	0.2%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2024	92.9%	4.5%	1.2%	1.0%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share was highest in 2013 at 95.3% and lowest in 2023 at 92.4%. Overall it fell from 95.2% in 2009 to 92.9% in 2024, down 2.3 percentage points. It has risen in the latest release.

Working from home gained the most ground in Sumter County: its share of workers rose from 1.6% in 2009 to 4.5% in 2024, up 2.9 percentage points. Most of that increase, 2.2 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in Sumter County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Sumter County?

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

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Sumter County6.8% South Carolina5.0%	6.8%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Sumter County2.5% South Carolina3.7%	2.5%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Sumter County4.2% South Carolina4.6%	4.2%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Sumter County8.5% South Carolina9.1%	8.5%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Sumter County12.7% South Carolina10.5%	12.7%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Sumter County15.7% South Carolina15.3%	15.7%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Sumter County14.6% South Carolina12.6%	14.6%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Sumter County7.7% South Carolina11.1%	7.7%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Sumter County4.1% South Carolina5.2%	4.1%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Sumter County6.4% South Carolina6.1%	6.4%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Sumter County1.4% South Carolina2.7%	1.4%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Sumter County1.4% South Carolina1.2%	1.4%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Sumter County6.0% South Carolina6.3%	6.0%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Sumter County8.1% South Carolina6.6%	8.1%

Sumter County South Carolina Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Sumter County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 15.7% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.3% across South Carolina. Early starts are about as common as in South Carolina: 13.5% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 13.2% there. The morning rush looks much like South Carolina's: 50.6% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.6% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (23.2%) 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 Sumter 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 Sumter 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 Sumter County next to South 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.

• Sumter County
• South Carolina
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Sumter County	South Carolina	United States
2009	7:29 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:32 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:31 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:30 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:31 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:30 AM	7:37 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:31 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:29 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:26 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:26 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:28 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:28 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:28 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:30 AM	7:34 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:33 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:29 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Sumter County were on the road by 7:29 AM, almost exactly the same as in 2009. Across South Carolina, meanwhile, the typical commuter now leaves 2 minutes earlier than in 2009. Commuters in Sumter County now leave 9 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Sumter County's commute time compare?

Metric	Sumter County	South Carolina	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	18.2 min	22.3 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	4.5%	11.5%	15.0%
Walked	1.2%	1.6%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.2%	0.4%	3.2%

The average commute time in Sumter County is 18.2 minutes, shorter than the 22.3 minutes in South Carolina.

0.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.4% in South Carolina. 1.2% commute by walking, lower than the 1.6% in South Carolina.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau