Buffalo County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Buffalo County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Buffalo 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 101 hours, about 4.2 full days, spent commuting. That is 28% less time on the road than the Nebraska average of 17.0 minutes each way, a difference of 4.8 minutes.

Buffalo County holds about 2.6% of Nebraska's population but accounts for roughly 1.8% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Buffalo County would save about 41 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,258 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)
Buffalo County	12.2 min	24.3 min	101 hrs/yr	$3,144	715
Nebraska	17.0 min	34.0 min	142 hrs/yr	$4,390	691
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: Nebraska Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

N

On average, it takes 12.2 minutes to get to work in Buffalo County. That's 46% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

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 4.7% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Buffalo County

• Car: 91.8%
• Worked at Home: 4.7%
• Walked: 2.1%
• Other: 0.8%
• Bicycle: 0.4%
• Public Transportation: 0.2%
• Taxi: < 0.1%
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is unusually rare in Buffalo County: 43229604.0 times less than the Nebraska average (0.0% vs 0.1%).

Commute Mode Trends in Buffalo County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Bicycle	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	89.5%	5.0%	4.0%	0.5%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.5%
2010	90.5%	4.2%	3.9%	0.4%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%	0.5%
2011	89.8%	4.2%	4.0%	0.5%	0.6%	0.3%	0.0%	0.5%
2012	89.8%	4.6%	3.7%	0.3%	0.9%	0.3%	0.0%	0.3%
2013	89.4%	4.6%	4.3%	0.4%	0.6%	0.3%	0.0%	0.3%
2014	89.8%	4.5%	4.1%	0.5%	0.6%	0.2%	0.0%	0.3%
2015	90.2%	4.3%	4.0%	0.5%	0.7%	0.1%	0.0%	0.3%
2016	90.6%	4.0%	3.7%	0.6%	0.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2017	91.2%	3.5%	3.5%	0.8%	0.6%	0.2%	0.0%	0.3%
2018	92.0%	3.3%	2.5%	0.9%	0.7%	0.3%	0.0%	0.3%
2019	92.2%	3.1%	2.7%	0.8%	0.7%	0.2%	0.0%	0.3%
2020	92.2%	4.2%	2.2%	0.6%	0.4%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%
2021	92.3%	4.4%	2.1%	0.6%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	92.8%	4.4%	1.7%	0.6%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	92.6%	4.4%	1.9%	0.7%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	91.8%	4.7%	2.1%	0.8%	0.4%	0.2%	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 2022 at 92.8% and lowest in 2013 at 89.4%. Overall it rose from 89.5% in 2009 to 91.8% in 2024, up 2.3 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 2 releases.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 4.0% to 2.1% of workers (down 1.9 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Buffalo County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Buffalo County?

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

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Buffalo County2.9% Nebraska4.3%	2.9%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Buffalo County2.8% Nebraska3.2%	2.8%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Buffalo County5.0% Nebraska5.1%	5.0%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Buffalo County6.4% Nebraska7.7%	6.4%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Buffalo County9.4% Nebraska10.5%	9.4%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Buffalo County12.8% Nebraska15.5%	12.8%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Buffalo County21.4% Nebraska16.7%	21.4%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Buffalo County8.8% Nebraska10.5%	8.8%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Buffalo County3.5% Nebraska4.4%	3.5%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Buffalo County4.0% Nebraska4.8%	4.0%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Buffalo County3.5% Nebraska2.4%	3.5%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Buffalo County2.2% Nebraska1.4%	2.2%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Buffalo County9.7% Nebraska7.1%	9.7%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Buffalo County7.7% Nebraska6.5%	7.7%

Buffalo County Nebraska Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Buffalo County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 21.4% of commuters leave home, compared with 16.7% across Nebraska. Early starts are less common than in Nebraska: 10.6% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 12.6% there. The morning rush looks much like Nebraska's: 52.4% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 53.1% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (27.1%) 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 Buffalo 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 Buffalo 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 Buffalo County next to Nebraska 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.

• Buffalo County
• Nebraska
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Buffalo County	Nebraska	United States
2009	7:49 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:46 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:45 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:46 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:46 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:50 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:50 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:49 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:48 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:48 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:46 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:47 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:47 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:48 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:44 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:45 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Buffalo County were on the road by 7:45 AM, 4 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:49 AM). Nebraska followed the same path, with the typical start moving 2 minutes earlier. Commuters in Buffalo County now leave 7 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Buffalo County's commute time compare?

Metric	Buffalo County	Nebraska	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	12.2 min	17.0 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	4.7%	11.1%	15.0%
Walked	2.1%	2.3%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.2%	0.5%	3.2%

The average commute time in Buffalo County is 12.2 minutes, shorter than the 17.0 minutes in Nebraska.

0.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.5% in Nebraska. 2.1% commute by walking, lower than the 2.3% in Nebraska.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau