Bennett County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Bennett County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Bennett County spend about 15 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 63 hours, about 2.6 full days, spent commuting. That is 51% less time on the road than the South Dakota average of 15.3 minutes each way, a difference of 7.8 minutes.

Bennett County holds about 0.4% of South Dakota's population but accounts for roughly 0.2% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Bennett County would save about 25 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $776 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)
Bennett County	7.5 min	15.0 min	63 hrs/yr	$1,941	100
South Dakota	15.3 min	30.7 min	128 hrs/yr	$3,961	353
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: South Dakota Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 7.5 minutes to get to work in Bennett County. That's 66% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Among the top 3 fastest counties in South Dakota

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 8.0% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Bennett County

• Car: 87.0%
• Worked at Home: 8.0%
• Walked: 5.0%
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Other: < 0.1%

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Bennett County, versus 0.2% in South Dakota.

Public transit is essentially absent in Bennett County, versus 0.5% in South Dakota.

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Bennett County, versus 0.1% in South Dakota.

Biking is essentially absent in Bennett County, versus 0.3% in South Dakota.

Commute Mode Trends in Bennett County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle	Bicycle	Other
2009	78.6%	14.7%	4.9%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	1.3%
2010	75.3%	20.9%	2.5%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.9%
2011	77.5%	17.2%	3.9%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.6%
2012	80.9%	11.6%	4.6%	2.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.7%
2013	76.7%	15.3%	5.4%	2.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.5%
2014	76.2%	14.1%	5.6%	1.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	2.7%
2015	78.5%	11.8%	5.1%	1.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	3.1%
2016	77.0%	10.8%	6.3%	2.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	3.9%
2017	74.4%	11.5%	6.6%	1.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	6.3%
2018	77.1%	8.3%	6.4%	1.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	7.2%
2019	80.6%	4.3%	7.9%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	6.9%
2020	79.3%	3.9%	8.6%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	8.0%
2021	81.1%	3.4%	10.1%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	5.0%
2022	83.5%	4.2%	9.9%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	2.4%
2023	83.8%	5.9%	7.7%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	2.6%
2024	87.0%	8.0%	5.0%	0.0%	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 2017 at 74.4%. Overall it rose from 78.6% in 2009 to 87.0% in 2024, up 8.4 percentage points. It has risen in each of the last 4 releases.

Working from home lost the most ground, falling from 14.7% to 8.0% of workers (down 6.7 percentage points).

Walking peaked at 10.1% in 2021 and has since fallen back to 5.0%.

Commute Start Times in Bennett County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Bennett County?

The bars show when commuters in Bennett 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 South Dakota for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Bennett County1.7% South Dakota4.1%	1.7%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Bennett County2.0% South Dakota3.1%	2.0%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Bennett County4.3% South Dakota5.1%	4.3%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Bennett County5.4% South Dakota6.9%	5.4%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Bennett County10.1% South Dakota11.3%	10.1%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Bennett County23.3% South Dakota16.2%	23.3%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Bennett County19.1% South Dakota19.9%	19.1%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Bennett County11.6% South Dakota10.2%	11.6%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Bennett County9.4% South Dakota3.7%	9.4%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Bennett County5.5% South Dakota4.3%	5.5%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Bennett County0.0% South Dakota2.0%	0.0%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Bennett County4.9% South Dakota1.4%	4.9%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Bennett County0.6% South Dakota6.1%	0.6%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Bennett County2.2% South Dakota5.8%	2.2%

Bennett County South Dakota Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Bennett County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 23.3% of commuters leave home, compared with 16.2% across South Dakota. Early starts are less common than in South Dakota: 7.9% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 12.2% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in South Dakota: 64.1% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 57.7% there. About 1 in 8 commuters (13.2%) 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 Bennett 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 Bennett 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 Bennett County next to South Dakota 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.

• Bennett County
• South Dakota
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Bennett County	South Dakota	United States
2009	7:28 AM	7:40 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:30 AM	7:40 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:29 AM	7:40 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:23 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:24 AM	7:39 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:28 AM	7:39 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:27 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:31 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:37 AM	7:38 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:39 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:37 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:44 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:41 AM	7:37 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:38 AM	7:36 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:29 AM	7:37 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:35 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Bennett County were on the road by 7:35 AM, 7 minutes later than in 2009 (7:28 AM). That goes against the trend across South Dakota, where the typical commuter now leaves 5 minutes earlier than in 2009. Commuters in Bennett County now leave 3 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 Bennett County has moved 2 minutes earlier.

How does Bennett County's commute time compare?

Metric	Bennett County	South Dakota	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	7.5 min	15.3 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	8.0%	9.7%	15.0%
Walked	5.0%	3.1%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.5%	3.2%

The average commute time in Bennett County is 7.5 minutes, shorter than the 15.3 minutes in South Dakota.

0.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.5% in South Dakota. 5.0% commute by walking, higher than the 3.1% in South Dakota.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau