Prairie County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Prairie County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Prairie County spend about 27 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 114 hours, about 4.8 full days, spent commuting. That is 14% less time on the road than the Montana average of 16.0 minutes each way, a difference of 2.3 minutes.

Prairie County holds about 0.1% of Montana's population and accounts for roughly 0.1% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Prairie County would save about 46 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,419 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)
Prairie County	13.7 min	27.5 min	114 hrs/yr	$3,548	80
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 13.7 minutes to get to work in Prairie County. That's 39% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 36.4% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Prairie County

• Car: 57.4% unusually low
• Worked at Home: 36.4%
• Walked: 3.0%
• Other: 3.0%
• Public Transportation: 0.2% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

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

Driving is 29% less common in Prairie County than the Montana average (57.4% vs 80.8%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Prairie County: 3.4 times less than the Montana average (0.2% vs 0.6%).

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

Biking is essentially absent in Prairie County, versus 1.0% in Montana.

Commute Mode Trends in Prairie County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle
2009	68.6%	13.5%	11.6%	0.0%	2.0%	0.0%	0.8%	3.5%
2010	68.4%	14.2%	11.9%	0.0%	1.9%	0.0%	0.0%	3.6%
2011	68.5%	17.7%	9.8%	0.0%	1.8%	0.0%	0.0%	2.2%
2012	68.4%	20.5%	7.5%	0.0%	1.9%	0.0%	0.0%	1.7%
2013	77.4%	16.0%	3.2%	1.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	1.7%
2014	72.8%	18.7%	7.3%	1.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	71.7%	20.0%	7.2%	1.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	68.7%	22.9%	7.2%	1.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	69.5%	17.6%	11.7%	1.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	65.0%	16.9%	16.8%	1.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	66.8%	15.1%	16.8%	1.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	58.7%	18.2%	19.7%	3.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	54.8%	23.2%	17.3%	4.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	57.1%	24.5%	14.1%	4.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	56.9%	31.8%	8.0%	3.1%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	57.4%	36.4%	3.0%	3.0%	0.2%	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 was highest in 2013 at 77.4% and lowest in 2021 at 54.8%. Overall it fell from 68.6% in 2009 to 57.4% in 2024, down 11.2 percentage points. It has risen in the latest release.

Working from home gained the most ground in Prairie County: its share of workers rose from 13.5% in 2009 to 36.4% in 2024, up 22.9 percentage points. Most of that increase, 21.3 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 11.6% to 3.0% of workers (down 8.6 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Prairie County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Prairie County?

The bars show when commuters in Prairie 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 Prairie County7.0% Montana4.0%	7.0%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Prairie County2.9% Montana2.7%	2.9%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Prairie County3.2% Montana4.0%	3.2%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Prairie County2.6% Montana6.7%	2.6%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Prairie County9.1% Montana10.3%	9.1%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Prairie County28.1% Montana13.7%	28.1%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Prairie County21.9% Montana19.2%	21.9%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Prairie County11.7% Montana11.7%	11.7%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Prairie County8.8% Montana5.7%	8.8%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Prairie County1.2% Montana6.3%	1.2%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Prairie County3.5% Montana3.3%	3.5%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Prairie County0.0% Montana1.5%	0.0%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Prairie County0.0% Montana5.7%	0.0%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Prairie County0.0% Montana5.2%	0.0%

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

The busiest time to head out in Prairie County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 28.1% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.7% 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: 70.8% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 55.0% there. About 1 in 21 commuters (4.7%) 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 Prairie 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 Prairie 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 Prairie 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.

• Prairie County
• Montana
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Prairie County	Montana	United States
2009	7:18 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:28 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:30 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:18 AM	7:45 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:22 AM	7:45 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:31 AM	7:45 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:27 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:21 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:26 AM	7:44 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:26 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:27 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:39 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:41 AM	7:45 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:30 AM	7:44 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:35 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:27 AM	7:43 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Prairie County were on the road by 7:27 AM, 9 minutes later than in 2009 (7:18 AM). That goes against the trend across Montana, where the typical commuter now leaves 2 minutes earlier than in 2009. Commuters in Prairie County now leave 11 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Prairie County's commute time compare?

Metric	Prairie County	Montana	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	13.7 min	16.0 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	36.4%	12.5%	15.0%
Walked	3.0%	3.9%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.2%	0.6%	3.2%

The average commute time in Prairie County is 13.7 minutes, shorter than the 16.0 minutes in Montana.

0.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.6% in Montana. 3.0% commute by walking, lower than the 3.9% in Montana.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau