Phelps County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Phelps County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Phelps County spend about 18 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 75 hours, about 3.1 full days, spent commuting. That is 47% less time on the road than the Nebraska average of 17.0 minutes each way, a difference of 8.0 minutes.

Phelps County holds about 0.5% of Nebraska's population but accounts for roughly 0.2% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Phelps County would save about 30 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $928 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)
Phelps County	9.0 min	18.0 min	75 hrs/yr	$2,320	558
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 9.0 minutes to get to work in Phelps County. That's 60% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 87% of counties in Nebraska

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 5.6% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Phelps County

• Car: 90.5%
• Worked at Home: 5.6%
• Walked: 3.1%
• Other: 0.7%
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is unusually rare in Phelps County: 974749437.7 times less than the Nebraska average (0.0% vs 0.1%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Phelps County: 1690755272.1 times less than the Nebraska average (0.0% vs 0.5%).

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

Biking is unusually rare in Phelps County: 5.1 times less than the Nebraska average (0.1% vs 0.3%).

Commute Mode Trends in Phelps County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Phelps 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	85.2%	7.0%	5.4%	1.6%	0.7%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2010	86.8%	6.7%	5.0%	0.5%	0.8%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2011	86.2%	7.4%	4.6%	0.5%	1.0%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2012	87.6%	6.2%	4.8%	0.3%	0.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.4%
2013	88.7%	6.4%	3.3%	0.5%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.4%
2014	89.8%	5.6%	3.4%	0.4%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.5%
2015	89.7%	4.7%	3.8%	0.5%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.9%
2016	91.3%	4.1%	3.1%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	1.0%
2017	92.0%	4.2%	3.0%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2018	92.8%	3.9%	2.6%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2019	93.4%	3.2%	2.8%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2020	93.3%	4.1%	2.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	92.7%	4.0%	3.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	92.8%	3.7%	2.9%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	90.4%	5.4%	3.3%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	90.5%	5.6%	3.1%	0.7%	0.1%	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 peaked in 2019 at 93.4%. Overall it rose from 85.2% in 2009 to 90.5% in 2024, up 5.3 percentage points.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 5.4% to 3.1% of workers (down 2.3 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Phelps County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Phelps County?

The bars show when commuters in Phelps 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 Phelps County3.6% Nebraska4.3%	3.6%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Phelps County2.2% Nebraska3.2%	2.2%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Phelps County5.1% Nebraska5.1%	5.1%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Phelps County7.2% Nebraska7.7%	7.2%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Phelps County10.6% Nebraska10.5%	10.6%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Phelps County19.8% Nebraska15.5%	19.8%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Phelps County21.8% Nebraska16.7%	21.8%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Phelps County8.8% Nebraska10.5%	8.8%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Phelps County4.3% Nebraska4.4%	4.3%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Phelps County3.1% Nebraska4.8%	3.1%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Phelps County2.9% Nebraska2.4%	2.9%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Phelps County0.6% Nebraska1.4%	0.6%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Phelps County4.6% Nebraska7.1%	4.6%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Phelps County5.5% Nebraska6.5%	5.5%

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

The busiest time to head out in Phelps County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 21.8% 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: 61.0% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 53.1% there. About 1 in 6 commuters (16.7%) 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 Phelps 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 Phelps 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 Phelps 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.

• Phelps County
• Nebraska
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Phelps County	Nebraska	United States
2009	7:36 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:36 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:34 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:35 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:32 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:36 AM	7:38 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:37 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:38 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:38 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:39 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:37 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:35 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:33 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:31 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:33 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:32 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Phelps County were on the road by 7:32 AM, 4 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:36 AM). Nebraska followed the same path, with the typical start moving 2 minutes earlier. Commuters in Phelps County now leave 6 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 Phelps County has moved 4 minutes earlier.

How does Phelps County's commute time compare?

Metric	Phelps County	Nebraska	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	9.0 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	5.6%	11.1%	15.0%
Walked	3.1%	2.3%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.5%	3.2%

The average commute time in Phelps County is 9.0 minutes, shorter than the 17.0 minutes in Nebraska.

0.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.5% in Nebraska. 3.1% commute by walking, higher than the 2.3% in Nebraska.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau