Delaware County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Delaware County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Delaware County spend about 31 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 127 hours, about 5.3 full days, spent commuting. That is 10% less time on the road than the Iowa average of 17.0 minutes each way, a difference of 1.7 minutes.

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

Working from home just 2 days a week in Delaware County would save about 51 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,578 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)
Delaware County	15.3 min	30.5 min	127 hrs/yr	$3,946	300
Iowa	17.0 min	33.9 min	141 hrs/yr	$4,382	606
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: Iowa Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 15.3 minutes to get to work in Delaware County. That's 32% 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 9.2% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Delaware County

• Car: 87.8%
• Worked at Home: 9.2%
• Walked: 2.2%
• Other: 0.7%
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Delaware County, versus 0.1% in Iowa.

Public transit is unusually rare in Delaware County: 9.3 times less than the Iowa average (0.1% vs 0.7%).

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Delaware County, versus 0.2% in Iowa.

Biking is essentially absent in Delaware County, versus 0.3% in Iowa.

Commute Mode Trends in Delaware County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Delaware 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	86.2%	9.6%	3.1%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%
2010	86.4%	8.5%	3.9%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.3%	0.2%
2011	86.6%	8.2%	3.9%	0.8%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%
2012	87.0%	8.5%	3.4%	0.7%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2013	86.3%	9.6%	3.1%	0.7%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2014	87.4%	8.6%	3.4%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	87.9%	8.8%	2.6%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	87.6%	8.9%	3.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	88.5%	8.0%	3.0%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	88.6%	8.1%	2.6%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	88.1%	8.2%	2.3%	0.9%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	87.8%	8.0%	2.4%	1.3%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	88.0%	8.0%	1.9%	1.6%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	87.5%	8.6%	2.1%	1.3%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	88.0%	8.4%	1.9%	1.2%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	87.8%	9.2%	2.2%	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 2018 at 88.6%. Overall it rose from 86.2% in 2009 to 87.8% in 2024, up 1.6 percentage points.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 3.1% to 2.2% of workers (down 0.9 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Delaware County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Delaware County?

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

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Delaware County8.3% Iowa5.2%	8.3%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Delaware County5.6% Iowa4.1%	5.6%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Delaware County5.9% Iowa5.7%	5.9%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Delaware County9.7% Iowa8.2%	9.7%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Delaware County11.6% Iowa11.2%	11.6%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Delaware County13.6% Iowa15.1%	13.6%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Delaware County17.9% Iowa15.6%	17.9%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Delaware County6.1% Iowa9.1%	6.1%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Delaware County2.8% Iowa3.6%	2.8%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Delaware County1.8% Iowa4.4%	1.8%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Delaware County0.4% Iowa2.3%	0.4%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Delaware County0.5% Iowa1.1%	0.5%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Delaware County8.3% Iowa7.5%	8.3%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Delaware County7.6% Iowa6.8%	7.6%

Delaware County Iowa Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Delaware County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 17.9% of commuters leave home, compared with 15.6% across Iowa. Early starts are more common than in Iowa: 19.7% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.9% there. The morning rush looks much like Iowa's: 49.2% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 51.0% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (18.6%) 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 Delaware 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 Delaware 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 Delaware County next to Iowa 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.

• Delaware County
• Iowa
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Delaware County	Iowa	United States
2009	7:11 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:08 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:10 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:14 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:08 AM	7:34 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:07 AM	7:33 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:08 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:07 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:05 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:08 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:09 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:06 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:10 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:11 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:17 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:20 AM	7:31 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Delaware County were on the road by 7:20 AM, 9 minutes later than in 2009 (7:11 AM). That goes against the trend across Iowa, where the typical commuter now leaves 3 minutes earlier than in 2009. Commuters in Delaware County now leave 18 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 Delaware County has moved 11 minutes later. The 2024 release is the latest typical start for Delaware County in the whole series.

How does Delaware County's commute time compare?

Metric	Delaware County	Iowa	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	15.3 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	9.2%	11.3%	15.0%
Walked	2.2%	2.9%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.7%	3.2%

The average commute time in Delaware County is 15.3 minutes, shorter than the 17.0 minutes in Iowa.

0.1% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.7% in Iowa. 2.2% commute by walking, lower than the 2.9% in Iowa.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau