Howell County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Howell County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Howell County spend about 33 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 139 hours, about 5.8 full days, spent commuting. That is 20% less time on the road than the Missouri average of 21.0 minutes each way, a difference of 4.3 minutes.

Howell County holds about 0.7% of Missouri's population but accounts for roughly 0.5% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Howell County would save about 56 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,727 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)
Howell County	16.7 min	33.4 min	139 hrs/yr	$4,317	589
Missouri	21.0 min	41.9 min	175 hrs/yr	$5,415	923
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: Missouri Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

N

On average, it takes 16.7 minutes to get to work in Howell County. That's 25% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 78% of counties in Missouri

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 6.0% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Howell County

• Car: 91.8%
• Worked at Home: 6.0%
• Walked: 0.9%
• Other: 0.8%
• Motorcycle: 0.4% unusually high
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is unusually common in Howell County: 3.6 times more than the Missouri average (0.4% vs 0.1%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Howell County: 9.2 times less than the Missouri average (0.1% vs 0.8%).

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Howell County, versus 0.2% in Missouri.

Biking is unusually rare in Howell County: 15.6 times less than the Missouri average (0.0% vs 0.2%).

Commute Mode Trends in Howell County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Howell 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
• Public Transportation
• Taxi
• Bicycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Motorcycle	Public Transportation	Taxi	Bicycle
2009	93.3%	2.6%	2.4%	1.2%	0.1%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%
2010	92.8%	2.9%	2.8%	1.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2011	94.0%	3.0%	1.9%	0.6%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2012	93.2%	3.2%	1.8%	1.2%	0.2%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%
2013	92.8%	3.9%	2.2%	0.8%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2014	93.1%	4.1%	1.8%	0.9%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	93.5%	3.7%	1.4%	0.9%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2016	93.3%	4.0%	1.3%	1.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2017	93.8%	4.0%	1.2%	0.6%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%
2018	94.8%	3.3%	0.7%	0.7%	0.0%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%
2019	94.2%	3.3%	0.9%	1.0%	0.0%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%
2020	94.8%	2.8%	1.0%	0.9%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	94.5%	3.2%	1.1%	1.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	93.6%	3.2%	1.2%	1.3%	0.2%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	93.0%	3.5%	1.3%	1.3%	0.7%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	91.8%	6.0%	0.9%	0.8%	0.4%	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 94.8%. Overall it fell from 93.3% in 2009 to 91.8% in 2024, down 1.5 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 4 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Howell County: its share of workers rose from 2.6% in 2009 to 6.0% in 2024, up 3.4 percentage points. Most of that increase, 2.7 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 2.4% to 0.9% of workers (down 1.5 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Howell County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Howell County?

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

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Howell County5.4% Missouri5.2%	5.4%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Howell County5.5% Missouri3.9%	5.5%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Howell County6.4% Missouri5.3%	6.4%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Howell County10.5% Missouri9.0%	10.5%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Howell County13.6% Missouri10.4%	13.6%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Howell County13.9% Missouri15.0%	13.9%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Howell County13.4% Missouri13.6%	13.4%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Howell County8.3% Missouri10.1%	8.3%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Howell County4.4% Missouri4.5%	4.4%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Howell County3.6% Missouri5.2%	3.6%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Howell County3.3% Missouri2.6%	3.3%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Howell County0.7% Missouri1.2%	0.7%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Howell County5.5% Missouri7.0%	5.5%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Howell County5.4% Missouri6.9%	5.4%

Howell County Missouri Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Howell County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 13.9% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.0% across Missouri. Early starts are more common than in Missouri: 17.3% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.5% there. The morning rush looks much like Missouri's: 49.3% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 49.1% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (18.5%) 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 Howell 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 Howell 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 Howell County next to Missouri 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.

• Howell County
• Missouri
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Howell County	Missouri	United States
2009	7:29 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:27 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:29 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:32 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:33 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:30 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:30 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	7:27 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:29 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:28 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:21 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:19 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:18 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:19 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Howell County were on the road by 7:19 AM, 11 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:29 AM). Across Missouri, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Howell County now leave 19 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 Howell County has moved 11 minutes earlier.

How does Howell County's commute time compare?

Metric	Howell County	Missouri	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	16.7 min	21.0 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	06:30 AM – 06:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	6.0%	13.0%	15.0%
Walked	0.9%	1.8%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in Howell County is 16.7 minutes, shorter than the 21.0 minutes in Missouri.

0.1% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.8% in Missouri. 0.9% commute by walking, lower than the 1.8% in Missouri.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau