Merritt Island Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Merritt Island: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Merritt Island spend about 40 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 169 hours, about 7.0 full days, spent commuting. That is 16% less time on the road than the Florida average of 24.0 minutes each way, a difference of 3.7 minutes.

Merritt Island holds about 0.2% of Florida's population but accounts for roughly 0.1% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Merritt Island would save about 67 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,092 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)
Merritt Island	20.2 min	40.5 min	169 hrs/yr	$5,230	3,727
Florida	24.0 min	47.9 min	200 hrs/yr	$6,189	3,068
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.

Merritt Island Commute Map

On average, it takes 20.2 minutes to get to work in Merritt Island. 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 06:00 AM – 06:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 19.1% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Merritt Island

• Car: 78.4%
• Worked at Home: 19.1%
• Other: 1.4%
• Bicycle: 0.4%
• Public Transportation: 0.3% unusually low
• Walked: 0.2% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1%
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Walking is unusually rare in Merritt Island: 6.8 times less than the Florida average (0.2% vs 1.4%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Merritt Island: 3.8 times less than the Florida average (0.3% vs 1.2%).

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in Merritt Island: 57.6 times less than the Florida average (0.0% vs 0.4%).

Few people walk or bike to work in Merritt Island: just 0.6%, 3.0 times below the Florida average of 1.9%.

Commute Mode Trends in Merritt Island, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Merritt Island 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
• Bicycle
• Public Transportation
• Walked
• Motorcycle
• Taxi

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Other	Bicycle	Public Transportation	Walked	Motorcycle	Taxi
2009	93.0%	3.8%	0.9%	0.5%	0.4%	1.0%	0.4%	0.0%
2010	93.0%	3.7%	0.8%	0.4%	0.4%	1.4%	0.2%	0.0%
2011	92.5%	3.6%	1.4%	0.5%	0.5%	1.0%	0.4%	0.0%
2012	92.1%	3.7%	1.4%	0.5%	0.5%	1.4%	0.4%	0.0%
2013	90.2%	4.7%	2.0%	0.2%	0.6%	1.7%	0.6%	0.0%
2014	90.7%	3.9%	2.0%	0.1%	0.6%	1.9%	0.6%	0.0%
2015	89.2%	4.6%	2.4%	0.3%	0.7%	1.7%	1.2%	0.0%
2016	87.8%	6.1%	2.1%	0.3%	0.5%	2.3%	1.0%	0.0%
2017	86.5%	7.8%	2.1%	0.2%	0.4%	1.8%	1.0%	0.2%
2018	87.2%	8.0%	1.8%	0.4%	0.3%	1.2%	0.8%	0.2%
2019	86.2%	9.6%	1.5%	0.4%	0.2%	1.2%	0.7%	0.2%
2020	85.5%	11.2%	1.7%	0.2%	0.1%	0.8%	0.2%	0.2%
2021	84.2%	12.3%	1.6%	0.6%	0.2%	0.5%	0.4%	0.2%
2022	81.9%	14.6%	1.7%	0.7%	0.3%	0.6%	0.2%	0.0%
2023	80.2%	17.3%	1.5%	0.4%	0.2%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%
2024	78.4%	19.1%	1.4%	0.4%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share fell from 93.0% in 2009 to 78.4% in 2024, down 14.6 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 6 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Merritt Island: its share of workers rose from 3.8% in 2009 to 19.1% in 2024, up 15.3 percentage points. Most of that increase, 9.5 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 1.0% to 0.2% of workers (down 0.8 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Merritt Island

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Merritt Island?

The bars show when commuters in Merritt Island 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 Florida for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Merritt Island3.6% Florida4.7%	3.6%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Merritt Island1.6% Florida3.5%	1.6%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Merritt Island4.4% Florida4.0%	4.4%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Merritt Island12.6% Florida9.1%	12.6%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Merritt Island9.6% Florida8.9%	9.6%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Merritt Island14.0% Florida15.1%	14.0%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Merritt Island10.0% Florida10.6%	10.0%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Merritt Island12.1% Florida13.1%	12.1%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Merritt Island7.5% Florida5.8%	7.5%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Merritt Island7.7% Florida8.0%	7.7%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Merritt Island2.8% Florida3.5%	2.8%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Merritt Island1.8% Florida1.5%	1.8%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Merritt Island8.2% Florida6.3%	8.2%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Merritt Island4.2% Florida5.9%	4.2%

Merritt Island Florida Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Merritt Island is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 14.0% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.1% across Florida. Early starts are less common than in Florida: 9.5% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 12.2% there. The morning rush looks much like Florida's: 45.8% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.7% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (24.7%) 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 Merritt Island, 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 Merritt Island 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 Merritt Island next to Florida 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.

• Merritt Island
• Florida
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Merritt Island	Florida	United States
2009	7:42 AM	7:41 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:41 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:40 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:37 AM	7:46 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:38 AM	7:47 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:36 AM	7:47 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:38 AM	7:47 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:42 AM	7:46 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:43 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:40 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:44 AM	7:43 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:40 AM	7:43 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:40 AM	7:43 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:37 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:38 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:43 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Merritt Island were on the road by 7:43 AM, almost exactly the same as in 2009. Across Florida, meanwhile, the typical commuter now leaves 2 minutes later than in 2009. Commuters in Merritt Island now leave 5 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Merritt Island's commute time compare?

Metric	Merritt Island	Florida	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	20.2 min	24.0 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	06:00 AM – 06:29 AM	08:00 AM – 08:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	19.1%	15.7%	15.0%
Walked	0.2%	1.4%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.3%	1.2%	3.2%

The average commute time in Merritt Island is 20.2 minutes, shorter than the 24.0 minutes in Florida.

0.3% commute by public transit, lower than the 1.2% in Florida. 0.2% commute by walking, lower than the 1.4% in Florida.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau