Carroll County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Carroll County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Carroll County spend about 22 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 90 hours, about 3.8 full days, spent commuting. That is 36% less time on the road than the Iowa average of 17.0 minutes each way, a difference of 6.1 minutes.

Carroll County holds about 0.6% of Iowa's population but accounts for roughly 0.4% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Carroll County would save about 36 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,121 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)
Carroll County	10.8 min	21.7 min	90 hrs/yr	$2,802	417
Iowa	17.0 min	33.9 min	141 hrs/yr	$4,382	606
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: Iowa Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 10.8 minutes to get to work in Carroll County. That's 52% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Among the top 5 fastest counties in Iowa

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 7.3% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Carroll County

• Car: 89.6%
• Worked at Home: 7.3%
• Walked: 1.9%
• Public Transportation: 0.6%
• Other: 0.6%
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Carroll County, versus 0.1% in Iowa.

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Carroll County, versus 0.2% in Iowa.

Biking is unusually rare in Carroll County: 11.9 times less than the Iowa average (0.0% vs 0.3%).

Commute Mode Trends in Carroll County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Carroll 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
• Walked
• Public Transportation
• Other
• Taxi
• Motorcycle
• Bicycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Public Transportation	Other	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	85.9%	8.6%	4.3%	0.8%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2010	87.8%	7.6%	3.6%	0.5%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2011	87.7%	6.9%	4.2%	0.2%	0.5%	0.1%	0.2%	0.3%
2012	88.3%	6.8%	3.8%	0.1%	0.4%	0.1%	0.3%	0.3%
2013	89.3%	6.1%	3.3%	0.3%	0.3%	0.1%	0.3%	0.3%
2014	87.9%	7.0%	3.7%	0.4%	0.4%	0.1%	0.3%	0.3%
2015	88.2%	6.8%	3.6%	0.4%	0.4%	0.0%	0.3%	0.3%
2016	89.2%	6.7%	2.8%	0.5%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%	0.3%
2017	89.7%	6.7%	2.3%	0.4%	0.3%	0.0%	0.2%	0.4%
2018	89.6%	6.6%	2.4%	0.3%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.5%
2019	90.3%	6.2%	2.0%	0.0%	0.8%	0.1%	0.0%	0.5%
2020	90.9%	5.8%	2.3%	0.1%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.4%
2021	90.9%	5.9%	2.1%	0.4%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	90.1%	6.0%	2.8%	0.3%	0.6%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	90.7%	6.5%	1.6%	0.5%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	89.6%	7.3%	1.9%	0.6%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2020 at 90.9%. Overall it rose from 85.9% in 2009 to 89.6% in 2024, up 3.7 percentage points. It has fallen in the latest release.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 4.3% to 1.9% of workers (down 2.4 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Carroll County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Carroll County?

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

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Carroll County4.0% Iowa5.2%	4.0%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Carroll County4.7% Iowa4.1%	4.7%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Carroll County5.8% Iowa5.7%	5.8%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Carroll County7.3% Iowa8.2%	7.3%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Carroll County11.8% Iowa11.2%	11.8%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Carroll County19.0% Iowa15.1%	19.0%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Carroll County17.7% Iowa15.6%	17.7%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Carroll County9.9% Iowa9.1%	9.9%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Carroll County1.4% Iowa3.6%	1.4%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Carroll County2.9% Iowa4.4%	2.9%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Carroll County2.7% Iowa2.3%	2.7%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Carroll County0.3% Iowa1.1%	0.3%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Carroll County4.9% Iowa7.5%	4.9%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Carroll County7.6% Iowa6.8%	7.6%

Carroll County Iowa Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Carroll County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 19.0% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.1% across Iowa. Early starts are about as common as in Iowa: 14.5% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.9% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Iowa: 58.4% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 51.0% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (18.4%) 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 Carroll 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 Carroll 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 Carroll County next to Iowa 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.

• Carroll County
• Iowa
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Carroll County	Iowa	United States
2009	7:31 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:31 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:33 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:33 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:33 AM	7:34 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:35 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:33 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:31 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:29 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:31 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:32 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:28 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:26 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:30 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:27 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:26 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Carroll County were on the road by 7:26 AM, 5 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:31 AM). Iowa followed the same path, with the typical start moving 3 minutes earlier. Commuters in Carroll County now leave 12 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 Carroll County has moved 6 minutes earlier. The 2024 release is the earliest typical start for Carroll County in the whole series.

How does Carroll County's commute time compare?

Metric	Carroll County	Iowa	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	10.8 min	17.0 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	7.3%	11.3%	15.0%
Walked	1.9%	2.9%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.6%	0.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Carroll County is 10.8 minutes, shorter than the 17.0 minutes in Iowa.

0.6% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.7% in Iowa. 1.9% commute by walking, lower than the 2.9% in Iowa.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau