Hampton Commute Time Map & Patterns

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

You 9/24/26, 3:10 PM

Is the commute in Hampton longer than the national average?

Map AI 9/24/26, 3:10 PM

Commute Time Burden in Hampton: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Hampton spend about 37 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 154 hours, about 6.4 full days, spent commuting. That is 20% less time on the road than the Virginia average of 23.2 minutes each way, a difference of 4.7 minutes.

Hampton holds about 1.6% of Virginia's population but accounts for roughly 1.3% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Hampton would save about 62 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,913 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)
Hampton	18.5 min	37.0 min	154 hrs/yr	$4,784	2,742
Virginia	23.2 min	46.3 min	193 hrs/yr	$5,986	1,531
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.

Hampton Commute Map

On average, it takes 18.5 minutes to get to work in Hampton. That's 17% 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 10.4% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Hampton

Commute Mode Trends in Hampton, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Hampton 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	Walked	Public Transportation	Other	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	92.7%	1.8%	2.0%	1.8%	1.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.3%
2010	92.6%	1.9%	1.7%	2.1%	1.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.3%
2011	92.1%	2.3%	1.7%	2.5%	0.8%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%
2012	91.1%	2.6%	2.4%	2.6%	0.9%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%
2013	91.0%	2.5%	2.3%	2.9%	0.8%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%
2014	90.7%	2.5%	2.3%	3.2%	0.8%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%
2015	90.6%	2.8%	2.5%	2.8%	0.8%	0.2%	0.1%	0.3%
2016	91.1%	2.5%	2.4%	2.5%	0.8%	0.2%	0.2%	0.4%
2017	91.7%	2.4%	2.0%	2.4%	0.9%	0.1%	0.2%	0.4%
2018	91.4%	2.6%	2.0%	2.3%	1.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.4%
2019	91.9%	2.7%	1.8%	2.2%	0.8%	0.1%	0.2%	0.3%
2020	89.4%	4.6%	2.1%	2.4%	1.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%
2021	87.9%	6.2%	2.2%	2.0%	1.2%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%
2022	87.9%	7.0%	1.8%	1.5%	1.2%	0.3%	0.1%	0.2%
2023	86.4%	8.2%	2.0%	1.5%	1.2%	0.3%	0.3%	0.1%
2024	84.4%	10.4%	1.8%	1.2%	1.2%	0.6%	0.3%	0.1%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share fell from 92.7% in 2009 to 84.4% in 2024, down 8.3 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 2 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Hampton: its share of workers rose from 1.8% in 2009 to 10.4% in 2024, up 8.6 percentage points. Most of that increase, 7.7 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 1.8% to 1.2% of workers (down 0.6 percentage points).

Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2010 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Hampton

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Hampton?

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

12:00-4:59 AM		5.7%
5:00-5:29 AM		5.7%
5:30-5:59 AM		7.1%
6:00-6:29 AM		10.0%
6:30-6:59 AM		9.3%
7:00-7:29 AM		12.0%
7:30-7:59 AM		11.8%
8:00-8:29 AM		8.7%
8:30-8:59 AM		4.5%
9:00-9:59 AM		5.5%
10:00-10:59 AM		3.8%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.4%
12:00-3:59 PM		6.1%
4:00-11:59 PM		8.5%

Hampton Virginia Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Hampton is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 12.0% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.2% across Virginia. Early starts are more common than in Virginia: 18.5% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.0% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Virginia: 41.7% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.5% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (25.3%) 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 Hampton, 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 Hampton 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 Hampton next to Virginia 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	Hampton	Virginia	United States
2009	7:22 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:24 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:23 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:23 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:23 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:24 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:26 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:27 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:30 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:29 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:28 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:29 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:29 AM	7:38 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:31 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:33 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:31 AM	7:40 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Hampton were on the road by 7:31 AM, 9 minutes later than in 2009 (7:22 AM). The shift is sharper than across Virginia, where the typical start moved 3 minutes later. Commuters in Hampton now leave 7 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 Hampton has moved 2 minutes later.

How does Hampton's commute time compare?

Metric	Hampton	Virginia	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	18.5 min	23.2 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	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	10.4%	18.3%	15.0%
Walked	1.8%	2.1%	2.4%
Public Transit	1.2%	2.3%	3.2%

The average commute time in Hampton is 18.5 minutes, shorter than the 23.2 minutes in Virginia.

1.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 2.3% in Virginia. 1.8% commute by walking, lower than the 2.1% in Virginia.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Hampton, VA Commute Compared With Nearby Cities

Hampton, VA is the 3rd largest of the 4 cities compared here, 137,557 residents against a local median of 184,065. Nothing separates Hampton, VA sharply from the cities around it. Each measure below lands within 15% of the local median, close enough that the differences are within what survey sampling alone would produce.

The largest of those small differences is one-way commute, 11% below the local median at 18.5 min against 20.9 min. Hampton, VA has the lowest one-way commute of the 4 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Hampton, VA	137,557	18.5 min #1/4	10.4% #1/4	7:31 AM #4/4
Norfolk, VA	233,287	20.9 min	10.2%	7:29 AM
Portsmouth, VA	97,157	21.7 min	8.7%	7:18 AM
Newport News, VA	184,065	20.5 min	10.2%	7:22 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Hampton, Virginia.

What is the financial impact of commuting in Hampton, Virginia?

Commuters here spend an estimated 154 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $4,784 at a typical national wage. That's 20% less than the typical Virginia commuter spends.

What are the busiest morning travel hours in Hampton, Virginia?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Hampton, Virginia. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM also sees a secondary bump.