Here’s hoping you have a good audiobook.

Residents of Eastern Massachusetts and parts of Southern New Hampshire spend an average of 30.6 minutes traveling to work, according to new data from the US Census Bureau.

That continues a trend in recent years of commute times creeping higher in the region.

Nationally, commute times have also been on the rise, according to five-year estimates from the Census Bureau’s 2012-2016 American Community Survey.

The 30.6-minute commute for the local Census metropolitan area, which includes most of Eastern Massachusetts and a chunk of Southeastern New Hampshire, was the 12th longest commute among metro areas nationwide and nearly five minutes above the national average of 26.1 minutes.

It’s certainly not the first time the Boston area has ranked poorly in terms of mobility.

The Census averages exclude people who worked from home, but otherwise they factor in workers 16 and over no matter how they traveled to work — whether by car, public transit, or some other mode. The figures only represent how long it took workers to get to their job, not their commute home.

The Census said the longest average commutes nationally were generally associated with larger metro areas or smaller metro areas near larger ones.

The metros with the longest commutes times were:

■ East Stroudsburg, Pa., area (38.6 minutes)

■ New York City area (35.9 minutes)

■ Washington, D.C., area (34.4 minutes)

The shortest commutes, which the Census said were usually associated with smaller metros, were:

■ Walla Walla, Wash., area (15.4 minutes)

■ Grand Forks, N.D., area (15.5 minutes)

■ Great Falls, Mont., area (15.6 minutes)

The Census figures also showed a small, steady increase in the percentage of people in the Massachusetts-New Hampshire Census area who traveled to work using public transportation.

The Census said 12.9 percent used public transportation, which was more than double the national average of 5.1 percent.

The percentage was even higher, 19.2 percent, for the portion of the Census area that includes Boston proper and the South Shore.

Matt Rocheleau can be reached at matthew.rocheleau@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @mrochele. Martin Finucane can be reached at martin.finucane@globe.com.