Dickinson County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Dickinson County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Dickinson County spend about 28 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 116 hours, about 4.8 full days, spent commuting. That is 18% less time on the road than the Iowa average of 17.0 minutes each way, a difference of 3.1 minutes.

Dickinson County holds about 0.6% of Iowa's population but accounts for roughly 0.5% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Dickinson County would save about 46 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,438 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)
Dickinson County	13.9 min	27.8 min	116 hrs/yr	$3,594	478
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 13.9 minutes to get to work in Dickinson County. That's 38% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 72% of counties in Iowa

The most common departure window is 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM, followed by 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 10.5% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Dickinson County

• Car: 85.7%
• Worked at Home: 10.5%
• Walked: 2.4%
• Other: 1.2%
• Motorcycle: 0.2%
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low

Public transit is essentially absent in Dickinson County, versus 0.7% in Iowa.

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in Dickinson County: 14.7 times less than the Iowa average (0.0% vs 0.2%).

Biking is unusually rare in Dickinson County: 3.9 times less than the Iowa average (0.1% vs 0.3%).

Commute Mode Trends in Dickinson County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Motorcycle	Bicycle	Public Transportation	Taxi
2009	82.0%	11.3%	3.4%	0.7%	0.2%	0.2%	2.1%	0.1%
2010	88.3%	6.6%	4.4%	0.3%	0.1%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2011	88.7%	6.1%	3.9%	0.5%	0.2%	0.2%	0.4%	0.0%
2012	88.4%	6.4%	3.8%	0.4%	0.4%	0.2%	0.5%	0.0%
2013	88.0%	6.9%	3.8%	0.6%	0.2%	0.1%	0.4%	0.0%
2014	88.4%	6.6%	3.2%	0.5%	0.3%	0.7%	0.4%	0.0%
2015	88.4%	6.6%	2.6%	1.1%	0.2%	0.6%	0.5%	0.0%
2016	88.6%	5.9%	3.0%	1.3%	0.2%	0.8%	0.3%	0.0%
2017	89.5%	5.3%	2.4%	1.4%	0.0%	1.0%	0.5%	0.0%
2018	90.3%	4.3%	2.2%	1.2%	0.0%	1.5%	0.5%	0.0%
2019	89.3%	5.3%	2.5%	1.2%	0.0%	1.2%	0.4%	0.0%
2020	89.6%	6.9%	1.5%	0.8%	0.0%	1.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2021	88.6%	8.2%	1.6%	0.8%	0.0%	0.5%	0.3%	0.0%
2022	86.8%	9.5%	1.6%	1.6%	0.0%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	85.2%	10.5%	1.8%	1.9%	0.0%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	85.7%	10.5%	2.4%	1.2%	0.2%	0.1%	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 2018 at 90.3%. Overall it rose from 82.0% in 2009 to 85.7% in 2024, up 3.7 percentage points. It has risen in the latest release.

Public transit lost the most ground, falling from 2.1% to 0.0% of workers (down 2.1 percentage points).

Walking peaked at 4.4% in 2010 and has since fallen back to 2.4%.

Commute Start Times in Dickinson County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Dickinson County?

The bars show when commuters in Dickinson 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 Dickinson County2.3% Iowa5.2%	2.3%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Dickinson County3.5% Iowa4.1%	3.5%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Dickinson County5.5% Iowa5.7%	5.5%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Dickinson County9.2% Iowa8.2%	9.2%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Dickinson County10.1% Iowa11.2%	10.1%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Dickinson County14.8% Iowa15.1%	14.8%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Dickinson County21.0% Iowa15.6%	21.0%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Dickinson County12.9% Iowa9.1%	12.9%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Dickinson County4.5% Iowa3.6%	4.5%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Dickinson County5.9% Iowa4.4%	5.9%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Dickinson County2.3% Iowa2.3%	2.3%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Dickinson County1.4% Iowa1.1%	1.4%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Dickinson County5.1% Iowa7.5%	5.1%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Dickinson County1.4% Iowa6.8%	1.4%

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

The busiest time to head out in Dickinson County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 21.0% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.6% across Iowa. Early starts are less common than in Iowa: 11.3% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.9% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Iowa: 58.8% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 51.0% there. About 1 in 6 commuters (16.2%) 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 Dickinson 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 Dickinson 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 Dickinson 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.

• Dickinson County
• Iowa
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Dickinson County	Iowa	United States
2009	7:29 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:40 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:40 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:41 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:38 AM	7:34 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:38 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:36 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:31 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:30 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:29 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:32 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:39 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:39 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:42 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:38 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:37 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Dickinson County were on the road by 7:37 AM, 7 minutes later than in 2009 (7:29 AM). That goes against the trend across Iowa, where the typical commuter now leaves 3 minutes earlier than in 2009. Commuters in Dickinson County now leave 1 minute 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 Dickinson County has moved 4 minutes later.

How does Dickinson County's commute time compare?

Metric	Dickinson County	Iowa	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	13.9 min	17.0 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	10.5%	11.3%	15.0%
Walked	2.4%	2.9%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Dickinson County is 13.9 minutes, shorter than the 17.0 minutes in Iowa.

0.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.7% in Iowa. 2.4% commute by walking, lower than the 2.9% in Iowa.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau