Hamilton County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Hamilton County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Hamilton County spend about 33 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 139 hours, about 5.8 full days, spent commuting. That is 2% less time on the road than the Nebraska average of 17.0 minutes each way, a difference of 0.3 minutes.

Hamilton County holds about 0.5% of Nebraska's population and accounts for roughly 0.5% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Hamilton County would save about 56 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,723 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)
Hamilton County	16.7 min	33.4 min	139 hrs/yr	$4,308	660
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

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On average, it takes 16.7 minutes to get to work in Hamilton County. That's 26% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

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 8.5% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Hamilton County

• Car: 87.9%
• Worked at Home: 8.5%
• Walked: 2.9%
• Other: 0.7%
• Motorcycle: < 0.1%
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Public transit is unusually rare in Hamilton County: 827125950.5 times less than the Nebraska average (0.0% vs 0.5%).

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

Biking is unusually rare in Hamilton County: 15.6 times less than the Nebraska average (0.0% vs 0.3%).

Commute Mode Trends in Hamilton County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Hamilton 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	86.1%	8.4%	2.6%	2.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.5%
2010	84.4%	8.5%	4.5%	1.9%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.6%
2011	84.7%	9.1%	3.9%	1.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.6%
2012	85.2%	7.2%	5.4%	1.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.5%
2013	85.8%	7.3%	5.2%	1.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.5%
2014	86.0%	7.3%	5.6%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.4%
2015	86.8%	6.5%	5.3%	0.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.3%
2016	86.7%	6.2%	5.9%	0.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%
2017	87.6%	5.9%	5.3%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.3%
2018	87.1%	6.8%	5.0%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.4%	0.3%
2019	86.3%	6.7%	6.0%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.5%	0.2%
2020	86.7%	6.9%	5.5%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.3%
2021	87.7%	6.2%	5.2%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%
2022	87.8%	8.0%	3.3%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%	0.1%
2023	87.7%	8.0%	3.6%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%
2024	87.9%	8.5%	2.9%	0.7%	0.0%	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 bottomed out in 2010 at 84.4%. Overall it rose from 86.1% in 2009 to 87.9% in 2024, up 1.8 percentage points.

Biking lost the most ground, falling from 0.5% to 0.0% of workers (down 0.5 percentage points).

Walking peaked at 6.0% in 2019 and has since fallen back to 2.9%.

Commute Start Times in Hamilton County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Hamilton County?

The bars show when commuters in Hamilton 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 Hamilton County3.6% Nebraska4.3%	3.6%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Hamilton County2.1% Nebraska3.2%	2.1%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Hamilton County5.1% Nebraska5.1%	5.1%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Hamilton County6.9% Nebraska7.7%	6.9%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Hamilton County18.0% Nebraska10.5%	18.0%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Hamilton County16.3% Nebraska15.5%	16.3%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Hamilton County22.7% Nebraska16.7%	22.7%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Hamilton County12.9% Nebraska10.5%	12.9%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Hamilton County2.7% Nebraska4.4%	2.7%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Hamilton County5.0% Nebraska4.8%	5.0%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Hamilton County0.5% Nebraska2.4%	0.5%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Hamilton County0.1% Nebraska1.4%	0.1%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Hamilton County1.7% Nebraska7.1%	1.7%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Hamilton County2.3% Nebraska6.5%	2.3%

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

The busiest time to head out in Hamilton County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 22.7% of commuters leave home, compared with 16.7% across Nebraska. Early starts are less common than in Nebraska: 10.9% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 12.6% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Nebraska: 69.8% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 53.1% there. About 1 in 10 commuters (9.8%) 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 Hamilton 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 Hamilton 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 Hamilton 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.

• Hamilton County
• Nebraska
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Hamilton County	Nebraska	United States
2009	7:30 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:35 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:40 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:45 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:45 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:41 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:36 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:34 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:28 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:26 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:31 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:28 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:23 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:25 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:30 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:26 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Hamilton County were on the road by 7:26 AM, 4 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:30 AM). Nebraska followed the same path, with the typical start moving 2 minutes earlier. Commuters in Hamilton County now leave 11 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 Hamilton County has moved 4 minutes earlier.

How does Hamilton County's commute time compare?

Metric	Hamilton County	Nebraska	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	16.7 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	06:30 AM – 06:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	8.5%	11.1%	15.0%
Walked	2.9%	2.3%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.5%	3.2%

The average commute time in Hamilton County is about the same as in Nebraska.

0.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.5% in Nebraska. 2.9% commute by walking, higher than the 2.3% in Nebraska.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau