Montana Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Montana: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Montana spend about 32 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 134 hours, about 5.6 full days, spent commuting. That is 28% less time on the road than the US average of 22.4 minutes each way, a difference of 6.4 minutes.

Montana holds about 0.3% of US's population but accounts for roughly 0.2% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Montana would save about 53 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,657 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)
Montana	16.0 min	32.1 min	134 hrs/yr	$4,143	403
US	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: Montana Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 16.0 minutes to get to work in Montana. That's 28% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Among the top 5 fastest states in US

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 12.5% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Montana

• Car: 80.8%
• Worked at Home: 12.5%
• Walked: 3.9%
• Other: 1.0%
• Bicycle: 1.0%
• Public Transportation: 0.6% unusually low
• Motorcycle: 0.1%
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Public transit is unusually rare in Montana: 5.0 times less than the US average (0.6% vs 3.2%).

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in Montana: 5.2 times less than the US average (0.1% vs 0.3%).

Commute Mode Trends in Montana, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Bicycle	Other	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	84.7%	6.5%	5.3%	1.5%	0.8%	1.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2010	84.6%	6.8%	5.1%	1.3%	0.8%	1.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2011	85.0%	6.6%	4.9%	1.3%	0.8%	1.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2012	85.2%	6.5%	4.8%	1.4%	0.8%	0.9%	0.0%	0.3%
2013	85.5%	6.3%	4.9%	1.4%	0.8%	0.8%	0.0%	0.2%
2014	85.6%	6.4%	4.8%	1.3%	0.8%	0.8%	0.0%	0.2%
2015	85.6%	6.2%	4.9%	1.4%	0.8%	0.8%	0.0%	0.2%
2016	85.3%	6.3%	5.1%	1.4%	0.8%	0.8%	0.0%	0.2%
2017	85.3%	6.4%	5.1%	1.3%	0.8%	0.8%	0.1%	0.2%
2018	85.3%	6.5%	5.2%	1.3%	0.8%	0.8%	0.1%	0.2%
2019	85.4%	6.5%	5.1%	1.2%	0.8%	0.7%	0.1%	0.2%
2020	84.4%	8.0%	4.6%	1.1%	0.8%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%
2021	83.4%	9.4%	4.3%	1.1%	0.9%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%
2022	82.3%	10.6%	4.2%	1.1%	0.9%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%
2023	81.6%	11.6%	4.0%	1.0%	1.0%	0.6%	0.1%	0.1%
2024	80.8%	12.5%	3.9%	1.0%	1.0%	0.6%	0.1%	0.1%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2014 at 85.6%. Overall it fell from 84.7% in 2009 to 80.8% in 2024, down 3.9 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 5 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Montana: its share of workers rose from 6.5% in 2009 to 12.5% in 2024, up 6.0 percentage points. Most of that increase, 6.0 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 5.3% to 3.9% of workers (down 1.4 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Montana

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Montana?

The bars show when commuters in Montana 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 the U.S. for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Montana4.0% The U.S.5.5%	4.0%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Montana2.7% The U.S.4.0%	2.7%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Montana4.0% The U.S.4.9%	4.0%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Montana6.7% The U.S.8.7%	6.7%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Montana10.3% The U.S.9.4%	10.3%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Montana13.7% The U.S.14.4%	13.7%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Montana19.2% The U.S.11.9%	19.2%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Montana11.7% The U.S.11.5%	11.7%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Montana5.7% The U.S.5.5%	5.7%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Montana6.3% The U.S.6.8%	6.3%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Montana3.3% The U.S.3.1%	3.3%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Montana1.5% The U.S.1.5%	1.5%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Montana5.7% The U.S.6.8%	5.7%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Montana5.2% The U.S.6.1%	5.2%

Montana The U.S. Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Montana is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 19.2% of commuters leave home, compared with 11.9% across the U.S.. Early starts are less common than in the U.S.: 10.7% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.4% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in the U.S.: 55.0% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.1% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (22.0%) 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 Montana, 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 Montana 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 Montana next to 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.

• Montana
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Montana	United States
2009	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:45 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:45 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:43 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Montana were on the road by 7:43 AM, 2 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:45 AM). Commuters in Montana now leave 6 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Montana's commute time compare?

Metric	Montana	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	16.0 min	22.4 min
Work From Home	12.5%	15.0%
Walked	3.9%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.6%	3.2%

The average commute time in Montana is 16.0 minutes, shorter than the 22.4 minutes in US.

0.6% commute by public transit, lower than the 3.2% in US. 3.9% commute by walking, higher than the 2.4% in US.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau