Dawson County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Dawson County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Dawson County spend about 24 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 98 hours, about 4.1 full days, spent commuting. That is 27% less time on the road than the Montana average of 16.0 minutes each way, a difference of 4.3 minutes.

Dawson County holds about 0.8% of Montana's population but accounts for roughly 0.6% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Dawson County would save about 39 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,215 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)
Dawson County	11.8 min	23.5 min	98 hrs/yr	$3,037	149
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

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 11.8 minutes to get to work in Dawson County. That's 48% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 73% of counties in Montana

The most common departure window is 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM, followed by 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 6.1% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Dawson County

• Car: 89.2%
• Worked at Home: 6.1%
• Walked: 4.2%
• Bicycle: 0.2% unusually low
• Other: 0.1%
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1%
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Public transit is unusually rare in Dawson County: 6.9 times less than the Montana average (0.1% vs 0.6%).

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

Biking is unusually rare in Dawson County: 5.2 times less than the Montana average (0.2% vs 1.0%).

Commute Mode Trends in Dawson County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Bicycle	Public Transportation	Motorcycle	Other	Taxi
2009	87.6%	6.2%	4.6%	1.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.3%	0.0%
2010	86.1%	6.1%	5.8%	1.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.7%	0.0%
2011	86.5%	6.1%	5.3%	1.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.9%	0.0%
2012	85.7%	6.4%	5.4%	0.9%	0.3%	0.1%	1.2%	0.0%
2013	84.3%	7.1%	5.9%	1.0%	0.2%	0.0%	1.5%	0.0%
2014	85.8%	6.7%	5.8%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	1.1%	0.0%
2015	86.6%	6.7%	4.9%	0.9%	0.2%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%
2016	84.7%	8.2%	5.4%	0.5%	0.2%	0.4%	0.5%	0.0%
2017	84.8%	8.1%	5.5%	0.5%	0.2%	0.4%	0.4%	0.0%
2018	87.1%	6.3%	5.0%	0.5%	0.2%	0.7%	0.3%	0.0%
2019	85.6%	6.7%	5.6%	1.0%	0.2%	0.6%	0.5%	0.0%
2020	87.5%	6.8%	4.9%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.4%	0.0%
2021	84.9%	7.4%	6.8%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.4%	0.0%
2022	86.6%	6.5%	6.1%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.4%	0.0%
2023	87.1%	6.8%	5.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.5%	0.0%
2024	89.2%	6.1%	4.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%	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 2013 at 84.3%. Overall it rose from 87.6% in 2009 to 89.2% in 2024, up 1.6 percentage points. It has risen in each of the last 3 releases.

Biking lost the most ground, falling from 1.1% to 0.2% of workers (down 0.9 percentage points).

Walking peaked at 6.8% in 2021 and has since fallen back to 4.2%.

Commute Start Times in Dawson County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Dawson County?

The bars show when commuters in Dawson 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	12:00-4:59 AM Dawson County8.8% Montana4.0%	8.8%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Dawson County1.7% Montana2.7%	1.7%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Dawson County6.2% Montana4.0%	6.2%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Dawson County2.5% Montana6.7%	2.5%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Dawson County17.7% Montana10.3%	17.7%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Dawson County13.7% Montana13.7%	13.7%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Dawson County24.6% Montana19.2%	24.6%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Dawson County10.2% Montana11.7%	10.2%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Dawson County2.0% Montana5.7%	2.0%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Dawson County3.7% Montana6.3%	3.7%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Dawson County1.9% Montana3.3%	1.9%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Dawson County0.1% Montana1.5%	0.1%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Dawson County4.5% Montana5.7%	4.5%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Dawson County2.4% Montana5.2%	2.4%

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

The busiest time to head out in Dawson County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 24.6% of commuters leave home, compared with 19.2% across Montana. Early starts are more common than in Montana: 16.7% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 10.7% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Montana: 66.3% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 55.0% there. About 1 in 8 commuters (12.6%) 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 Dawson 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 Dawson 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 Dawson 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.

• Dawson County
• Montana
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Dawson County	Montana	United States
2009	7:35 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:35 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:39 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:35 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:36 AM	7:45 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:33 AM	7:45 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:35 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:35 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:33 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:31 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:30 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:26 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:19 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:31 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:32 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:29 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Dawson County were on the road by 7:29 AM, 6 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:35 AM). The shift is sharper than across Montana, where the typical start moved 2 minutes earlier. Commuters in Dawson County now leave 9 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Dawson County's commute time compare?

Metric	Dawson County	Montana	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	11.8 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	06:30 AM – 06:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	6.1%	12.5%	15.0%
Walked	4.2%	3.9%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.6%	3.2%

The average commute time in Dawson County is 11.8 minutes, shorter than the 16.0 minutes in Montana.

0.1% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.6% in Montana. 4.2% commute by walking, higher than the 3.9% in Montana.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau