Ector County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Ector County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Ector County spend about 40 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 167 hours, about 7.0 full days, spent commuting. That is 12% less time on the road than the Texas average of 22.8 minutes each way, a difference of 2.7 minutes.

Ector County holds about 0.5% of Texas's population and accounts for roughly 0.5% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Ector County would save about 67 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,076 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)
Ector County	20.1 min	40.2 min	167 hrs/yr	$5,190	1,304
Texas	22.8 min	45.6 min	190 hrs/yr	$5,888	1,441
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: Texas Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 20.1 minutes to get to work in Ector County. That's 10% shorter 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 3.2% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Ector County

• Car: 94.5%
• Worked at Home: 3.2% unusually low
• Other: 1.1%
• Walked: 0.8%
• Public Transportation: 0.2% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1%
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is unusually rare in Ector County: 80.6 times less than the Texas average (0.0% vs 0.1%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Ector County: 4.3 times less than the Texas average (0.2% vs 0.9%).

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in Ector County: 5.7 times less than the Texas average (0.0% vs 0.2%).

Working from home is unusually rare in Ector County: 4.5 times less than the Texas average (3.2% vs 14.4%).

Commute Mode Trends in Ector County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Other	Walked	Public Transportation	Bicycle	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	94.7%	2.4%	0.9%	1.2%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.3%
2010	94.4%	2.7%	0.9%	1.2%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%
2011	95.1%	2.4%	0.8%	1.0%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2012	95.3%	2.4%	0.5%	1.0%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2013	95.2%	2.3%	0.5%	1.0%	0.6%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2014	95.4%	2.3%	0.3%	1.0%	0.6%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%
2015	95.5%	2.1%	0.3%	1.1%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2016	95.6%	2.0%	0.3%	1.3%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2017	94.7%	2.2%	0.6%	1.7%	0.4%	0.3%	0.0%	0.2%
2018	95.0%	2.4%	0.5%	1.4%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2019	94.3%	2.8%	0.7%	1.8%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2020	93.9%	3.1%	0.7%	1.7%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2021	93.9%	3.3%	0.8%	1.6%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2022	93.8%	3.4%	1.1%	1.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2023	93.7%	3.6%	1.3%	1.0%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	94.5%	3.2%	1.1%	0.8%	0.2%	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 2016 at 95.6% and lowest in 2023 at 93.7%. Overall it held roughly steady, at 94.7% in 2009 and 94.5% in 2024. It has risen in the latest release.

Working from home gained the most ground in Ector County: its share of workers rose from 2.4% in 2009 to 3.2% in 2024, up 0.8 percentage points.

Commute Start Times in Ector County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Ector County?

The bars show when commuters in Ector 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 Texas for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Ector County7.1% Texas5.5%	7.1%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Ector County5.5% Texas4.4%	5.5%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Ector County5.2% Texas5.1%	5.2%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Ector County11.5% Texas9.3%	11.5%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Ector County11.7% Texas9.3%	11.7%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Ector County15.7% Texas15.3%	15.7%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Ector County14.1% Texas11.8%	14.1%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Ector County9.6% Texas11.5%	9.6%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Ector County3.8% Texas4.8%	3.8%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Ector County4.6% Texas6.7%	4.6%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Ector County2.5% Texas3.1%	2.5%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Ector County0.9% Texas1.3%	0.9%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Ector County2.9% Texas5.8%	2.9%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Ector County4.9% Texas6.2%	4.9%

Ector County Texas Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Ector County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 15.7% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.3% across Texas. Early starts are more common than in Texas: 17.8% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.9% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Texas: 51.1% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.9% there. About 1 in 6 commuters (15.8%) 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 Ector 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 Ector 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 Ector County next to Texas 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.

• Ector County
• Texas
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Ector County	Texas	United States
2009	7:37 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:38 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:39 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:38 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:35 AM	7:32 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:32 AM	7:32 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:28 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:27 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:25 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:24 AM	7:30 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:23 AM	7:30 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:21 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:17 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:17 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:18 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:17 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Ector County were on the road by 7:17 AM, 20 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:37 AM). That goes against the trend across Texas, where the typical commuter now leaves 1 minute later than in 2009. Commuters in Ector County now leave 21 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 Ector County has moved 6 minutes earlier.

How does Ector County's commute time compare?

Metric	Ector County	Texas	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	20.1 min	22.8 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	3.2%	14.4%	15.0%
Walked	0.8%	1.5%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.2%	0.9%	3.2%

The average commute time in Ector County is 20.1 minutes, shorter than the 22.8 minutes in Texas.

0.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.9% in Texas. 0.8% commute by walking, lower than the 1.5% in Texas.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau