Plymouth County Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Plymouth County, Iowa: how long it takes, when people leave home and how they get to work. Ask Map AI about any address.

You 9/24/26, 8:23 PM

Is the commute in Plymouth County longer than the national average?

Map AI 9/24/26, 8:23 PM

Commute Time Burden in Plymouth County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Plymouth County spend about 32 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 133 hours, about 5.6 full days, spent commuting. That is 6% less time on the road than the Iowa average of 17.0 minutes each way, a difference of 1.0 minutes.

Plymouth County holds about 0.8% of Iowa's population and accounts for roughly 0.8% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Plymouth County would save about 53 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,653 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)
Plymouth County	16.0 min	32.0 min	133 hrs/yr	$4,132	596
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

Fastest commutes among counties in Iowa

Sioux County (10.1 min)
Union County (10.4 min)
Cass County (10.6 min)

Slowest commutes among counties in Iowa

Monroe County (30.4 min)
Madison County (30.1 min)
Mills County (26.7 min)

Compare commute times among different counties

Plymouth County

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Average commute time

On average, it takes 16.0 minutes to get to work in Plymouth County. That's 29% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 9.2% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Plymouth County

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

Commute Mode Trends in Plymouth County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Plymouth 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.

Share of workers aged 16 and over, by ACS 5-year release year. Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Public Transportation	Bicycle	Motorcycle	Taxi
2009	90.5%	6.4%	2.2%	0.4%	0.3%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2010	89.7%	6.3%	2.6%	0.7%	0.4%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2011	89.1%	5.9%	2.9%	1.3%	0.3%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%
2012	89.3%	6.2%	2.6%	1.2%	0.3%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%
2013	89.4%	6.1%	2.6%	1.2%	0.2%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%
2014	90.1%	4.9%	3.2%	1.3%	0.1%	0.2%	0.3%	0.0%
2015	90.4%	5.0%	2.7%	1.4%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%
2016	90.5%	5.7%	2.7%	0.8%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2017	89.9%	5.5%	2.8%	1.5%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2018	88.9%	6.4%	2.8%	1.4%	0.2%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2019	88.6%	6.3%	3.5%	1.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2020	88.0%	7.5%	3.4%	0.7%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2021	88.4%	7.7%	2.9%	0.7%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2022	87.3%	8.7%	3.0%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2023	88.0%	8.6%	2.2%	0.6%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2024	88.2%	9.2%	1.1%	0.7%	0.6%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share bottomed out in 2022 at 87.3%. Overall it fell from 90.5% in 2009 to 88.2% in 2024, down 2.3 percentage points. It has risen in each of the last 2 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Plymouth County: its share of workers rose from 6.4% in 2009 to 9.2% in 2024, up 2.8 percentage points. Most of that increase, 2.9 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 2.2% to 1.1% of workers (down 1.1 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Plymouth County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Plymouth County?

The bars show when commuters in Plymouth 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		7.8%
5:00-5:29 AM		6.0%
5:30-5:59 AM		6.0%
6:00-6:29 AM		9.7%
6:30-6:59 AM		14.9%
7:00-7:29 AM		17.3%
7:30-7:59 AM		14.4%
8:00-8:29 AM		7.5%
8:30-8:59 AM		2.7%
9:00-9:59 AM		2.2%
10:00-10:59 AM		1.1%
11:00-11:59 AM		0.3%
12:00-3:59 PM		3.5%
4:00-11:59 PM		6.7%

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

The busiest time to head out in Plymouth County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 17.3% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.1% across Iowa. Early starts are more common than in Iowa: 19.8% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.9% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Iowa: 54.0% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 51.0% there. About 1 in 7 commuters (13.8%) 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 Plymouth 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 Plymouth 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 Plymouth 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.

Median time commuters leave home, by ACS 5-year release year. Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Plymouth County	Iowa	United States
2009	7:27 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:26 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:27 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:27 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:27 AM	7:34 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:28 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:27 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:26 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:32 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:28 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:28 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:24 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:20 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:10 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:11 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:10 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Plymouth County were on the road by 7:10 AM, 17 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:27 AM). The shift is sharper than across Iowa, where the typical start moved 3 minutes earlier. Commuters in Plymouth County now leave 28 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 Plymouth County has moved 18 minutes earlier. The 2024 release is the earliest typical start for Plymouth County in the whole series.

How does Plymouth County's commute time compare?

Metric	Plymouth County	Iowa	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	16.0 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	06:30 AM – 06:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	9.2%	11.3%	15.0%
Walked	1.1%	2.9%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.6%	0.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Plymouth County is 16.0 minutes, shorter than the 17.0 minutes in Iowa.

0.6% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.7% in Iowa. 1.1% commute by walking, lower than the 2.9% in Iowa.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Plymouth County, IA Commute Compared With Nearby Counties

Plymouth County, IA is the 3rd largest of the 6 counties compared here, 25,747 residents against a local median of 21,354. The measure that sets Plymouth County, IA apart most is one-way commute: 16.0 min, 22% above the local median of 13.1 min. That is the weaker end of the local range on this measure.

Work from home tells the same story from another angle: 9.2% against a local median of 7.9%, 16% above it. The counties themselves spread 6.3 min on one-way commute, so Plymouth County, IA sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. Plymouth County, IA has the 4th lowest one-way commute of the 6 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Plymouth County, IA	25,747	16.0 min #4/6	9.2% #2/6	7:10 AM #1/6
Sioux County, IA	36,212	10.1 min	12.8%	7:29 AM
Woodbury County, IA	106,250	16.4 min	5.6%	7:35 AM
Union County, SD	17,081	16.4 min	7.9%	7:31 AM
Dakota County, NE	21,354	13.1 min	4.9%	7:23 AM
Cherokee County, IA	11,600	12.7 min	8.6%	7:21 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Plymouth County, Iowa.

What is the financial impact of commuting in Plymouth County, Iowa?

Commuters here spend an estimated 133 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $4,132 at a typical national wage. That's 6% less than the typical Iowa commuter spends.

What are the busiest morning travel hours in Plymouth County, Iowa?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Plymouth County, Iowa. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM also sees a secondary bump.

How do commute times compare across counties in Iowa?

Among counties in Iowa, the shortest average commutes are in Sioux County (10.1 min), Union County (10.4 min), Cass County (10.6 min). The longest are in Monroe County (30.4 min), Madison County (30.1 min), Mills County (26.7 min).