Nebraska Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Nebraska: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Nebraska spend about 34 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 142 hours, about 5.9 full days, spent commuting. That is 24% less time on the road than the US average of 22.4 minutes each way, a difference of 5.4 minutes.

Nebraska holds about 0.6% of US's population but accounts for roughly 0.4% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Nebraska would save about 57 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,756 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)
Nebraska	17.0 min	34.0 min	142 hrs/yr	$4,390	691
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: Nebraska Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 17.0 minutes to get to work in Nebraska. That's 24% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 88% of 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 11.1% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Nebraska

• Car: 84.7%
• Worked at Home: 11.1%
• Walked: 2.3%
• Other: 0.9%
• Public Transportation: 0.5% unusually low
• Bicycle: 0.3%
• Taxi: 0.1%
• Motorcycle: < 0.1%

Public transit is unusually rare in Nebraska: 6.9 times less than the US average (0.5% vs 3.2%).

Commute Mode Trends in Nebraska, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Nebraska 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
• Bicycle
• Taxi
• Motorcycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Public Transportation	Bicycle	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	89.9%	4.8%	3.2%	0.6%	0.7%	0.5%	0.0%	0.2%
2010	90.0%	4.9%	3.2%	0.6%	0.7%	0.5%	0.0%	0.2%
2011	90.1%	4.9%	3.1%	0.5%	0.7%	0.5%	0.1%	0.2%
2012	90.4%	4.6%	3.0%	0.5%	0.7%	0.5%	0.0%	0.2%
2013	90.7%	4.5%	2.9%	0.6%	0.7%	0.5%	0.0%	0.2%
2014	90.8%	4.4%	2.8%	0.6%	0.7%	0.5%	0.0%	0.2%
2015	90.8%	4.4%	2.8%	0.6%	0.7%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%
2016	90.8%	4.3%	2.8%	0.7%	0.7%	0.5%	0.0%	0.1%
2017	91.0%	4.3%	2.7%	0.7%	0.7%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%
2018	91.0%	4.4%	2.7%	0.7%	0.7%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%
2019	90.9%	4.5%	2.6%	0.7%	0.7%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%
2020	89.7%	6.0%	2.5%	0.7%	0.6%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%
2021	88.1%	7.6%	2.5%	0.7%	0.6%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%
2022	87.0%	8.9%	2.4%	0.8%	0.5%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%
2023	85.8%	10.0%	2.3%	0.8%	0.5%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%
2024	84.7%	11.1%	2.3%	0.9%	0.5%	0.3%	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 2017 at 91.0%. Overall it fell from 89.9% in 2009 to 84.7% in 2024, down 5.2 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 6 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Nebraska: its share of workers rose from 4.8% in 2009 to 11.1% in 2024, up 6.3 percentage points. Most of that increase, 6.6 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 3.2% to 2.3% of workers (down 0.9 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Nebraska

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Nebraska?

The bars show when commuters in Nebraska 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 Nebraska4.3% The U.S.5.5%	4.3%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Nebraska3.2% The U.S.4.0%	3.2%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Nebraska5.1% The U.S.4.9%	5.1%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Nebraska7.7% The U.S.8.7%	7.7%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Nebraska10.5% The U.S.9.4%	10.5%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Nebraska15.5% The U.S.14.4%	15.5%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Nebraska16.7% The U.S.11.9%	16.7%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Nebraska10.5% The U.S.11.5%	10.5%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Nebraska4.4% The U.S.5.5%	4.4%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Nebraska4.8% The U.S.6.8%	4.8%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Nebraska2.4% The U.S.3.1%	2.4%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Nebraska1.4% The U.S.1.5%	1.4%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Nebraska7.1% The U.S.6.8%	7.1%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Nebraska6.5% The U.S.6.1%	6.5%

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

The busiest time to head out in Nebraska is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 16.7% of commuters leave home, compared with 11.9% across the U.S.. Early starts are less common than in the U.S.: 12.6% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.4% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in the U.S.: 53.1% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.1% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (22.2%) 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 Nebraska, 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 Nebraska 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 Nebraska 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.

• Nebraska
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Nebraska	United States
2009	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:37 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Nebraska were on the road by 7:37 AM, 2 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:39 AM). Commuters in Nebraska now leave 1 minute earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Nebraska's commute time compare?

Metric	Nebraska	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	17.0 min	22.4 min
Work From Home	11.1%	15.0%
Walked	2.3%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.5%	3.2%

The average commute time in Nebraska is 17.0 minutes, shorter than the 22.4 minutes in US.

0.5% commute by public transit, lower than the 3.2% in US. 2.3% commute by walking, lower than the 2.4% in US.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau