Custer County Commute Time Map & Patterns

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

You 9/24/26, 11:55 AM

How much time do drivers in Custer County spend on the road daily?

Map AI 9/24/26, 11:55 AM

Commute Time Burden in Custer County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Custer 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 86 hours, about 3.6 full days, spent commuting. That is 36% less time on the road than the Montana average of 16.0 minutes each way, a difference of 5.7 minutes.

Custer County holds about 1.1% of Montana's population but accounts for roughly 0.7% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Custer County would save about 34 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,065 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)
Custer County	10.3 min	20.6 min	86 hrs/yr	$2,664	150
Montana	16.0 min	32.1 min	134 hrs/yr	$4,143	403
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: Montana Counties

Fastest commutes among counties in Montana

Treasure County (7.2 min)
Rosebud County (8.2 min)
Fallon County (8.4 min)

Slowest commutes among counties in Montana

Broadwater County (30.3 min)
Stillwater County (27.8 min)
Granite County (23.3 min)

Compare commute times among different counties

Custer County

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Average commute time

On average, it takes 10.3 minutes to get to work in Custer County. That's 54% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 87% of counties in Montana

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 5.0% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Custer County

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Custer County, versus 0.1% in Montana.

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Custer County, versus 0.1% in Montana.

Biking is unusually rare in Custer County: 12.1 times less than the Montana average (0.1% vs 1.0%).

Commute Mode Trends in Custer County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Custer 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	Walked	Worked at Home	Other	Public Transportation	Bicycle	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	89.6%	3.4%	5.3%	0.6%	0.0%	0.5%	0.0%	0.6%
2010	89.5%	4.3%	4.7%	0.6%	0.0%	0.7%	0.0%	0.2%
2011	87.8%	3.6%	6.2%	0.5%	0.6%	0.7%	0.0%	0.5%
2012	88.6%	3.9%	5.1%	0.4%	0.5%	0.8%	0.0%	0.6%
2013	87.6%	3.8%	5.6%	0.5%	0.6%	1.3%	0.0%	0.7%
2014	86.9%	4.5%	5.7%	0.4%	0.5%	1.3%	0.0%	0.6%
2015	88.3%	3.7%	5.2%	0.8%	0.4%	1.3%	0.0%	0.3%
2016	88.2%	3.3%	6.2%	0.5%	0.5%	1.2%	0.0%	0.2%
2017	87.1%	3.5%	7.0%	0.6%	0.7%	1.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2018	87.7%	3.9%	6.5%	0.5%	0.3%	0.2%	0.4%	0.4%
2019	87.8%	3.9%	6.3%	0.7%	0.4%	0.0%	0.3%	0.6%
2020	86.4%	5.1%	5.7%	1.2%	0.4%	0.0%	0.3%	0.8%
2021	87.0%	5.4%	4.9%	1.5%	0.4%	0.0%	0.3%	0.5%
2022	88.2%	5.0%	4.7%	1.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.3%	0.3%
2023	88.1%	5.1%	5.8%	1.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	88.1%	6.0%	5.0%	0.6%	0.3%	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 bottomed out in 2020 at 86.4%. Overall it fell from 89.6% in 2009 to 88.1% in 2024, down 1.5 percentage points.

Walking gained the most ground in Custer County: its share of workers rose from 3.4% in 2009 to 6.0% in 2024, up 2.6 percentage points. Most of that increase, 2.1 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Riding a motorcycle lost the most ground, falling from 0.6% to 0.0% of workers (down 0.6 percentage points).

Walking overtook working from home to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2024 release and has stayed ahead since.

Working from home peaked at 7.0% in 2017 and has since fallen back to 5.0%.

Commute Start Times in Custer County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Custer County?

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

12:00-4:59 AM		4.5%
5:00-5:29 AM		3.9%
5:30-5:59 AM		4.9%
6:00-6:29 AM		5.3%
6:30-6:59 AM		10.4%
7:00-7:29 AM		13.6%
7:30-7:59 AM		22.3%
8:00-8:29 AM		11.0%
8:30-8:59 AM		4.9%
9:00-9:59 AM		5.5%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.8%
11:00-11:59 AM		3.5%
12:00-3:59 PM		4.6%
4:00-11:59 PM		2.8%

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

The busiest time to head out in Custer County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 22.3% of commuters leave home, compared with 19.2% across Montana. Early starts are more common than in Montana: 13.2% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 10.7% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Montana: 57.3% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 55.0% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (19.2%) 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 Custer 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 Custer 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 Custer County next to Montana 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	Custer County	Montana	United States
2009	7:32 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:31 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:34 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:35 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:37 AM	7:45 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:39 AM	7:45 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:40 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:41 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:42 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:43 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:43 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:45 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:46 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:46 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:42 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:40 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Custer County were on the road by 7:40 AM, 8 minutes later than in 2009 (7:32 AM). That goes against the trend across Montana, where the typical commuter now leaves 2 minutes earlier than in 2009. Commuters in Custer County now leave 2 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in Custer County has moved 3 minutes earlier.

How does Custer County's commute time compare?

Metric	Custer County	Montana	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	10.3 min	16.0 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	5.0%	12.5%	15.0%
Walked	6.0%	3.9%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.3%	0.6%	3.2%

The average commute time in Custer County is 10.3 minutes, shorter than the 16.0 minutes in Montana.

0.3% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.6% in Montana. 6.0% commute by walking, higher than the 3.9% in Montana.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Custer County, MT Commute Compared With Nearby Counties

Custer County, MT is the largest of the 6 counties compared here, 11,960 residents against a local median of 2,760. The measure that sets Custer County, MT apart most is work from home: 5.0%, 28% below the local median of 7.0%.

The counties themselves spread 30.3% on work from home, so Custer County, MT sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. Custer County, MT has the 6th highest work from home of the 6 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Custer County, MT	11,960	10.3 min #3/6	5.0% #6/6	7:40 AM #6/6
Prairie County, MT	1,249	13.7 min	36.4%	7:27 AM
Powder River County, MT	1,815	10.6 min	19.6%	7:18 AM
Fallon County, MT	2,760	8.4 min	6.2%	7:21 AM
Rosebud County, MT	8,165	8.2 min	7.0%	7:30 AM
Dawson County, MT	8,827	11.8 min	6.1%	7:29 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Custer County, Montana.

Is living in Custer County, Montana good for avoiding long commute costs?

Commuters here spend an estimated 86 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $2,664 at a typical national wage. That's 36% less than the typical Montana commuter spends.

When is peak congestion during the morning commute in Custer County, Montana?

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

Which counties in Montana have the fastest and slowest commutes?

Among counties in Montana, the shortest average commutes are in Treasure County (7.2 min), Rosebud County (8.2 min), Fallon County (8.4 min). The longest are in Broadwater County (30.3 min), Stillwater County (27.8 min), Granite County (23.3 min).