Official source

CommuteShift uses the Census Bureau's 2021 and 2024 American Community Survey five-year Detailed Tables: B01003 (population), B08301 (means of transportation to work), B08303 (travel time to work), and B08013 (aggregate travel time). Files and geography labels come directly from the official table-based Summary File.

Who is covered

Place reports require at least 5,000 residents and 500 estimated workers. County reports require at least 2,500 residents and 500 workers. State reports cover all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.

Average one-way commute

Mean travel time is aggregate travel minutes divided by the estimated number of workers with a reported travel time. The universe excludes people who worked from home.

Margins of error

The ACS is a survey. We preserve published 90% margins of error for counts and calculate ratio margins from published component margins using Census guidance. A rank is descriptive; close values can overlap.

Why “directional change”

The 2021 five-year estimate covers 2017–2021, while the 2024 estimate covers 2020–2024. Those windows share two years. We subtract published estimates to show direction, but do not label the change statistically independent or causal.

No composite score

Different households value time, transit, walking, cycling, or remote work differently. CommuteShift reports each signal separately and uses peer percentiles only for that single metric.