Odessa Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Odessa: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Odessa spend about 35 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 148 hours, about 6.1 full days, spent commuting. That is 22% less time on the road than the Texas average of 22.8 minutes each way, a difference of 5.1 minutes.

Odessa holds about 0.3% of Texas's population and accounts for roughly 0.3% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Odessa would save about 59 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,830 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)
Odessa	17.7 min	35.4 min	148 hrs/yr	$4,574	1,778
Texas	22.8 min	45.6 min	190 hrs/yr	$5,888	1,441
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.

Odessa Commute Map

On average, it takes 17.7 minutes to get to work in Odessa. That's 21% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

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 3.2% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Odessa

• Car: 94.2%
• Worked at Home: 3.2% unusually low
• Other: 1.4%
• Walked: 0.8%
• Public Transportation: 0.2% unusually low
• Bicycle: 0.1%
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is unusually rare in Odessa: 71.4 times less than the Texas average (0.0% vs 0.1%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Odessa: 3.7 times less than the Texas average (0.2% vs 0.9%).

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in Odessa: 3.6 times less than the Texas average (0.0% vs 0.2%).

Working from home is unusually rare in Odessa: 4.5 times less than the Texas average (3.2% vs 14.4%).

Commute Mode Trends in Odessa, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Other	Walked	Public Transportation	Bicycle	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	95.2%	2.1%	0.8%	1.1%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.3%
2010	95.1%	2.2%	0.8%	1.1%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%
2011	95.5%	2.1%	0.7%	0.9%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2012	95.7%	2.1%	0.5%	1.0%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2013	95.6%	2.0%	0.5%	1.0%	0.6%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2014	95.6%	1.9%	0.4%	1.0%	0.7%	0.2%	0.0%	0.2%
2015	95.6%	2.1%	0.3%	1.0%	0.6%	0.2%	0.0%	0.2%
2016	95.5%	1.9%	0.3%	1.2%	0.6%	0.2%	0.0%	0.2%
2017	94.3%	2.3%	0.5%	1.9%	0.6%	0.3%	0.0%	0.2%
2018	94.5%	2.5%	0.5%	1.7%	0.7%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2019	94.4%	2.6%	0.5%	1.9%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2020	94.3%	2.8%	0.5%	1.7%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2021	94.1%	2.9%	0.7%	1.8%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2022	94.0%	2.9%	1.2%	1.3%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2023	94.0%	3.2%	1.3%	1.0%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	94.2%	3.2%	1.4%	0.8%	0.2%	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 2012 at 95.7% and lowest in 2022 at 94.0%. Overall it fell from 95.2% in 2009 to 94.2% in 2024, down 1.0 percentage points.

Working from home gained the most ground in Odessa: its share of workers rose from 2.1% in 2009 to 3.2% in 2024, up 1.1 percentage points.

Commute Start Times in Odessa

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Odessa?

The bars show when commuters in Odessa 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 Texas for comparison. Hover over or tap a row for the exact numbers.

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Odessa4.9% Texas5.5%	4.9%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Odessa5.5% Texas4.4%	5.5%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Odessa5.0% Texas5.1%	5.0%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Odessa10.6% Texas9.3%	10.6%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Odessa12.2% Texas9.3%	12.2%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Odessa15.7% Texas15.3%	15.7%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Odessa13.8% Texas11.8%	13.8%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Odessa9.7% Texas11.5%	9.7%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Odessa4.8% Texas4.8%	4.8%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Odessa5.2% Texas6.7%	5.2%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Odessa3.2% Texas3.1%	3.2%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Odessa0.8% Texas1.3%	0.8%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Odessa3.5% Texas5.8%	3.5%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Odessa5.1% Texas6.2%	5.1%

Odessa Texas Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Odessa is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 15.7% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.3% across Texas. Early starts are about as common as in Texas: 15.4% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.9% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Texas: 51.4% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 47.9% there. About 1 in 6 commuters (17.8%) 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 Odessa, 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 Odessa 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 Odessa next to Texas 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.

• Odessa
• Texas
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Odessa	Texas	United States
2009	7:41 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:41 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:41 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:41 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:37 AM	7:32 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:35 AM	7:32 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:32 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:30 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:29 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:27 AM	7:30 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:28 AM	7:30 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:27 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:22 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:22 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:22 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:23 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Odessa were on the road by 7:23 AM, 18 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:41 AM). That goes against the trend across Texas, where the typical commuter now leaves 1 minute later than in 2009. Commuters in Odessa now leave 15 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 Odessa has moved 5 minutes earlier.

How does Odessa's commute time compare?

Metric	Odessa	Texas	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	17.7 min	22.8 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	3.2%	14.4%	15.0%
Walked	0.8%	1.5%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.2%	0.9%	3.2%

The average commute time in Odessa is 17.7 minutes, shorter than the 22.8 minutes in Texas.

0.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.9% in Texas. 0.8% commute by walking, lower than the 1.5% in Texas.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau