Ellis County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Ellis County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Ellis County spend about 21 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 87 hours, about 3.6 full days, spent commuting. That is 39% less time on the road than the Kansas average of 17.2 minutes each way, a difference of 6.7 minutes.

Ellis County holds about 1.0% of Kansas's population but accounts for roughly 0.6% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Ellis County would save about 35 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,084 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)
Ellis County	10.5 min	21.0 min	87 hrs/yr	$2,709	424
Kansas	17.2 min	34.4 min	143 hrs/yr	$4,448	662
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: Kansas Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

N

On average, it takes 10.5 minutes to get to work in Ellis County. That's 53% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 77% of counties in Kansas

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 walking. About 6.2% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Ellis County

• Car: 85.2%
• Walked: 7.7% unusually high
• Worked at Home: 6.2%
• Other: 0.5%
• Motorcycle: 0.4%
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Walking is unusually common in Ellis County: 3.4 times more than the Kansas average (7.7% vs 2.3%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Ellis County: 21.1 times less than the Kansas average (0.0% vs 0.4%).

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Ellis County, versus 0.2% in Kansas.

Biking is unusually rare in Ellis County: 1291075170.4 times less than the Kansas average (0.0% vs 0.3%).

Commute Mode Trends in Ellis County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Ellis 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
• Walked
• Worked at Home
• Other
• Motorcycle
• Public Transportation
• Taxi
• Bicycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Walked	Worked at Home	Other	Motorcycle	Public Transportation	Taxi	Bicycle
2009	92.6%	3.7%	2.9%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.2%
2010	90.9%	4.3%	3.5%	0.2%	0.3%	0.4%	0.0%	0.5%
2011	91.4%	3.4%	3.7%	0.4%	0.3%	0.5%	0.0%	0.5%
2012	91.5%	3.1%	3.8%	0.4%	0.3%	0.5%	0.0%	0.4%
2013	92.0%	2.6%	3.4%	0.5%	0.4%	0.5%	0.0%	0.5%
2014	92.5%	3.0%	2.9%	0.5%	0.3%	0.5%	0.0%	0.4%
2015	93.1%	3.2%	2.7%	0.2%	0.2%	0.4%	0.0%	0.3%
2016	92.7%	3.3%	3.4%	0.1%	0.2%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	92.7%	3.2%	3.6%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	92.7%	3.1%	3.7%	0.1%	0.0%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%
2019	93.0%	2.4%	4.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%
2020	91.5%	3.1%	4.7%	0.0%	0.3%	0.1%	0.3%	0.1%
2021	89.4%	4.2%	5.5%	0.2%	0.3%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%
2022	86.8%	6.4%	5.7%	0.2%	0.4%	0.0%	0.4%	0.1%
2023	86.2%	7.0%	6.0%	0.4%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	85.2%	7.7%	6.2%	0.5%	0.4%	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 2015 at 93.1%. Overall it fell from 92.6% in 2009 to 85.2% in 2024, down 7.4 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Walking gained the most ground in Ellis County: its share of workers rose from 3.7% in 2009 to 7.7% in 2024, up 4.0 percentage points. Most of that increase, 5.3 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in Ellis County

• 🦉 Night OwlThe 2nd-latest start among Kansas's 105 counties: half of commuters are still at home at 7:48 AM.

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Ellis County?

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

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Ellis County2.6% Kansas4.7%	2.6%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Ellis County3.6% Kansas3.5%	3.6%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Ellis County3.2% Kansas5.2%	3.2%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Ellis County3.0% Kansas7.6%	3.0%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Ellis County10.1% Kansas10.3%	10.1%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Ellis County12.5% Kansas14.9%	12.5%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Ellis County25.0% Kansas16.8%	25.0%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Ellis County10.4% Kansas10.4%	10.4%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Ellis County4.0% Kansas4.5%	4.0%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Ellis County6.3% Kansas5.0%	6.3%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Ellis County3.6% Kansas2.5%	3.6%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Ellis County2.1% Kansas1.1%	2.1%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Ellis County5.8% Kansas7.0%	5.8%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Ellis County7.9% Kansas6.6%	7.9%

Ellis County Kansas Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Ellis County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 25.0% of commuters leave home, compared with 16.8% across Kansas. Early starts are less common than in Kansas: 9.4% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 13.5% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Kansas: 58.0% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 52.3% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (25.6%) 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 Ellis 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 Ellis 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 Ellis County next to Kansas 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.

• Ellis County
• Kansas
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Ellis County	Kansas	United States
2009	7:54 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:53 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:53 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:50 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:49 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:47 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:46 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:44 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:44 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:44 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:48 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:51 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:52 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:55 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:51 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:48 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Ellis County were on the road by 7:48 AM, 6 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:54 AM). The shift is sharper than across Kansas, where the typical start moved 2 minutes earlier. Commuters in Ellis County now leave 10 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Ellis County's commute time compare?

Metric	Ellis County	Kansas	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	10.5 min	17.2 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	6.2%	11.8%	15.0%
Walked	7.7%	2.3%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.4%	3.2%

The average commute time in Ellis County is 10.5 minutes, shorter than the 17.2 minutes in Kansas.

0.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.4% in Kansas. 7.7% commute by walking, higher than the 2.3% in Kansas.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau