Fulton County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Fulton County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Fulton County spend about 38 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 157 hours, about 6.5 full days, spent commuting. That is 21% less time on the road than the Illinois average of 23.6 minutes each way, a difference of 4.8 minutes.

Fulton County holds about 0.3% of Illinois's population but accounts for roughly 0.2% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Fulton County would save about 63 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,941 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)
Fulton County	18.8 min	37.6 min	157 hrs/yr	$4,852	471
Illinois	23.6 min	47.3 min	197 hrs/yr	$6,104	1,547
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: Illinois Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 18.8 minutes to get to work in Fulton County. That's 16% 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 5.1% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Fulton County

• Car: 90.6% unusually high
• Worked at Home: 5.1% unusually low
• Walked: 3.0%
• Other: 0.7%
• Motorcycle: 0.3% unusually high
• Taxi: 0.1%
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is unusually common in Fulton County: 4.5 times more than the Illinois average (0.3% vs 0.1%).

Driving is 23% more common in Fulton County than the Illinois average (90.6% vs 73.7%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Fulton County: 87.5 times less than the Illinois average (0.1% vs 5.8%).

Working from home is unusually rare in Fulton County: 3.1 times less than the Illinois average (5.1% vs 15.9%).

Biking is unusually rare in Fulton County: 9.1 times less than the Illinois average (0.1% vs 0.5%).

Commute Mode Trends in Fulton County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Motorcycle	Public Transportation	Taxi	Bicycle
2009	92.5%	2.7%	3.2%	1.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2010	92.6%	3.0%	3.2%	0.9%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2011	92.4%	2.9%	3.4%	1.0%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2012	92.9%	2.6%	3.2%	0.9%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2013	93.4%	2.3%	3.1%	1.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2014	93.9%	2.4%	2.6%	0.5%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2015	93.7%	2.3%	2.8%	0.6%	0.1%	0.3%	0.0%	0.2%
2016	94.1%	2.5%	2.3%	0.5%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%	0.2%
2017	93.6%	2.6%	2.6%	0.6%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.4%
2018	93.7%	2.6%	2.7%	0.5%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.4%
2019	92.8%	3.1%	3.1%	0.5%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%	0.4%
2020	92.7%	3.1%	3.0%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2021	92.9%	3.2%	3.0%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%
2022	93.1%	4.0%	2.1%	0.6%	0.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2023	91.2%	5.0%	2.4%	0.7%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%
2024	90.6%	5.1%	3.0%	0.7%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2016 at 94.1%. Overall it fell from 92.5% in 2009 to 90.6% in 2024, down 1.9 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 2 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Fulton County: its share of workers rose from 2.7% in 2009 to 5.1% in 2024, up 2.4 percentage points. Most of that increase, 2.0 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Working from home overtook walking to become the 2nd most common choice in the 2020 release and has stayed ahead since.

Commute Start Times in Fulton County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Fulton County?

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

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Fulton County5.5% Illinois5.6%	5.5%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Fulton County7.1% Illinois4.3%	7.1%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Fulton County8.5% Illinois4.9%	8.5%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Fulton County10.2% Illinois9.0%	10.2%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Fulton County9.2% Illinois9.4%	9.2%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Fulton County14.7% Illinois14.3%	14.7%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Fulton County13.6% Illinois11.6%	13.6%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Fulton County7.9% Illinois11.2%	7.9%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Fulton County3.8% Illinois5.2%	3.8%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Fulton County3.0% Illinois6.1%	3.0%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Fulton County0.8% Illinois2.9%	0.8%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Fulton County1.0% Illinois1.5%	1.0%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Fulton County8.2% Illinois7.7%	8.2%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Fulton County6.6% Illinois6.3%	6.6%

Fulton County Illinois Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Fulton County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 14.7% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.3% across Illinois. Early starts are more common than in Illinois: 21.0% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.8% there. The morning rush looks much like Illinois's: 45.3% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.5% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (19.7%) 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 Fulton 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 Fulton 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 Fulton County next to Illinois 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.

• Fulton County
• Illinois
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Fulton County	Illinois	United States
2009	7:20 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:23 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:22 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:21 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:18 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:18 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:15 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:18 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:18 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:17 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:14 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:14 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:14 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:14 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:19 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:20 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Fulton County were on the road by 7:20 AM, almost exactly the same as in 2009. Across Illinois, meanwhile, the typical commuter now leaves 1 minute later than in 2009. Commuters in Fulton 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 Fulton County has moved 5 minutes later.

How does Fulton County's commute time compare?

Metric	Fulton County	Illinois	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	18.8 min	23.6 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	5.1%	15.9%	15.0%
Walked	3.0%	2.8%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	5.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in Fulton County is 18.8 minutes, shorter than the 23.6 minutes in Illinois.

0.1% commute by public transit, lower than the 5.8% in Illinois. 3.0% commute by walking, higher than the 2.8% in Illinois.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau