Dawson County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Dawson County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Dawson County spend about 25 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 104 hours, about 4.3 full days, spent commuting. That is 27% less time on the road than the Nebraska average of 17.0 minutes each way, a difference of 4.5 minutes.

Dawson County holds about 1.2% of Nebraska's population but accounts for roughly 0.9% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Dawson County would save about 42 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,287 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	12.5 min	24.9 min	104 hrs/yr	$3,217	342
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 12.5 minutes to get to work in Dawson County. That's 44% 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 2.4% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Dawson County

• Car: 93.4%
• Worked at Home: 2.4% unusually low
• Other: 1.9%
• Walked: 1.9%
• Bicycle: 0.4%
• Motorcycle: < 0.1%
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Public transit is unusually rare in Dawson County: 1560019187.4 times less than the Nebraska average (0.0% vs 0.5%).

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

Working from home is unusually rare in Dawson County: 4.5 times less than the Nebraska average (2.4% vs 11.1%).

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
• Other
• Bicycle
• Motorcycle
• Public Transportation
• Taxi

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Bicycle	Motorcycle	Public Transportation	Taxi
2009	89.5%	4.6%	3.6%	0.9%	0.7%	0.5%	0.0%	0.2%
2010	89.4%	5.3%	3.4%	0.9%	0.5%	0.3%	0.0%	0.2%
2011	89.4%	5.0%	3.7%	0.7%	0.7%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%
2012	90.8%	4.0%	3.3%	0.8%	0.7%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%
2013	90.7%	4.4%	2.9%	0.8%	0.8%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%
2014	90.5%	4.3%	3.3%	0.9%	0.9%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2015	92.3%	3.5%	2.9%	0.5%	0.7%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2016	92.8%	3.1%	3.1%	0.5%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	93.3%	3.4%	2.5%	0.4%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	93.8%	3.1%	2.1%	0.5%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	94.5%	2.7%	2.0%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2020	93.7%	2.7%	2.4%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%	0.5%	0.0%
2021	93.8%	2.7%	2.0%	0.9%	0.0%	0.1%	0.5%	0.0%
2022	94.3%	2.0%	1.6%	1.4%	0.2%	0.1%	0.5%	0.0%
2023	93.5%	1.9%	1.5%	1.9%	0.4%	0.1%	0.6%	0.0%
2024	93.4%	2.4%	1.9%	1.9%	0.4%	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 was highest in 2019 at 94.5% and lowest in 2010 at 89.4%. Overall it rose from 89.5% in 2009 to 93.4% in 2024, up 3.9 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 2 releases.

Working from home lost the most ground, falling from 4.6% to 2.4% of workers (down 2.2 percentage points).

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 Nebraska for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Dawson County9.3% Nebraska4.3%	9.3%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Dawson County5.2% Nebraska3.2%	5.2%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Dawson County6.9% Nebraska5.1%	6.9%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Dawson County6.9% Nebraska7.7%	6.9%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Dawson County10.9% Nebraska10.5%	10.9%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Dawson County13.6% Nebraska15.5%	13.6%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Dawson County13.8% Nebraska16.7%	13.8%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Dawson County9.5% Nebraska10.5%	9.5%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Dawson County1.8% Nebraska4.4%	1.8%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Dawson County2.5% Nebraska4.8%	2.5%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Dawson County1.9% Nebraska2.4%	1.9%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Dawson County0.7% Nebraska1.4%	0.7%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Dawson County11.9% Nebraska7.1%	11.9%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Dawson County5.0% Nebraska6.5%	5.0%

Dawson County Nebraska 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 13.8% of commuters leave home, compared with 16.7% across Nebraska. Early starts are more common than in Nebraska: 21.3% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 12.6% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Nebraska: 47.9% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 53.1% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (22.1%) 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 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 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.

• Dawson County
• Nebraska
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Dawson County	Nebraska	United States
2009	7:38 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:37 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:36 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:37 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:37 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:32 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:30 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:31 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:27 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:28 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:31 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:25 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:26 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:29 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:27 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:24 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Dawson County were on the road by 7:24 AM, 14 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:38 AM). The shift is sharper than across Nebraska, where the typical start moved 2 minutes earlier. Commuters in Dawson County now leave 14 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in Dawson County has moved 7 minutes earlier. The 2024 release is the earliest typical start for Dawson County in the whole series.

How does Dawson County's commute time compare?

Metric	Dawson County	Nebraska	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	12.5 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	2.4%	11.1%	15.0%
Walked	1.9%	2.3%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.5%	3.2%

The average commute time in Dawson County is 12.5 minutes, shorter than the 17.0 minutes in Nebraska.

0.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.5% in Nebraska. 1.9% commute by walking, lower than the 2.3% in Nebraska.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau