Shelby County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Shelby County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Shelby County spend about 34 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 143 hours, about 6.0 full days, spent commuting. That is 27% less time on the road than the Illinois average of 23.6 minutes each way, a difference of 6.5 minutes.

Shelby County holds about 0.2% of Illinois's population but accounts for roughly 0.1% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Shelby County would save about 57 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,773 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)
Shelby County	17.2 min	34.3 min	143 hrs/yr	$4,432	763
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 17.2 minutes to get to work in Shelby County. That's 23% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 74% of counties in Illinois

The most common departure window is 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM, followed by 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 6.5% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Shelby County

• Car: 89.9% unusually high
• Worked at Home: 6.5%
• Walked: 2.1%
• Bicycle: 1.1%
• Other: 0.2%
• Public Transportation: 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is unusually rare in Shelby County: 3.2 times less than the Illinois average (0.0% vs 0.1%).

Driving is 22% more common in Shelby County than the Illinois average (89.9% vs 73.7%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Shelby County: 52.5 times less than the Illinois average (0.1% vs 5.8%).

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Shelby County, versus 0.3% in Illinois.

Commute Mode Trends in Shelby County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Bicycle	Other	Public Transportation	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	89.6%	6.4%	2.4%	0.3%	1.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2010	88.9%	6.8%	2.4%	0.3%	1.1%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2011	89.6%	7.3%	1.6%	0.3%	1.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2012	90.7%	6.8%	1.7%	0.2%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2013	91.1%	6.5%	1.3%	0.1%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%	0.3%
2014	91.7%	6.0%	1.4%	0.1%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%	0.3%
2015	92.0%	5.8%	1.2%	0.1%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.3%
2016	94.2%	3.9%	1.1%	0.1%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%	0.2%
2017	93.5%	4.8%	0.7%	0.1%	0.5%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%
2018	93.5%	4.1%	1.6%	0.0%	0.5%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	93.3%	4.5%	1.4%	0.0%	0.4%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	93.3%	4.0%	1.7%	0.2%	0.4%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	92.1%	5.0%	2.0%	0.2%	0.4%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	90.4%	5.2%	2.2%	1.1%	0.7%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	90.2%	5.8%	2.1%	1.0%	0.6%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	89.9%	6.5%	2.1%	1.1%	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 2016 at 94.2% and lowest in 2010 at 88.9%. Overall it held roughly steady, at 89.6% in 2009 and 89.9% in 2024. It has fallen in each of the last 4 releases.

Biking gained the most ground in Shelby County: its share of workers rose from 0.3% in 2009 to 1.1% in 2024, up 0.8 percentage points. Most of that increase, 1.1 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in Shelby County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Shelby County?

The bars show when commuters in Shelby 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 Shelby County7.5% Illinois5.6%	7.5%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Shelby County4.0% Illinois4.3%	4.0%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Shelby County4.6% Illinois4.9%	4.6%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Shelby County10.0% Illinois9.0%	10.0%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Shelby County15.8% Illinois9.4%	15.8%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Shelby County12.5% Illinois14.3%	12.5%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Shelby County13.0% Illinois11.6%	13.0%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Shelby County7.7% Illinois11.2%	7.7%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Shelby County2.6% Illinois5.2%	2.6%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Shelby County4.9% Illinois6.1%	4.9%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Shelby County2.7% Illinois2.9%	2.7%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Shelby County1.0% Illinois1.5%	1.0%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Shelby County3.9% Illinois7.7%	3.9%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Shelby County9.7% Illinois6.3%	9.7%

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

The busiest time to head out in Shelby County is 6:30-6:59 AM, when 15.8% of commuters leave home, compared with 9.4% across Illinois. Early starts are more common than in Illinois: 16.1% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.8% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Illinois: 49.0% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.5% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (22.3%) 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 Shelby 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 Shelby 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 Shelby 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.

• Shelby County
• Illinois
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Shelby County	Illinois	United States
2009	7:22 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:19 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:18 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:19 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:18 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:16 AM	7:36 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:15 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:09 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:07 AM	7:35 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:05 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:03 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:10 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:21 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:22 AM	7:35 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:19 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:19 AM	7:36 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Shelby County were on the road by 7:19 AM, 3 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:22 AM). That goes against the trend across Illinois, where the typical commuter now leaves 1 minute later than in 2009. Commuters in Shelby County now leave 19 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 Shelby County has moved 16 minutes later.

How does Shelby County's commute time compare?

Metric	Shelby County	Illinois	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	17.2 min	23.6 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	06:30 AM – 06:59 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	6.5%	15.9%	15.0%
Walked	2.1%	2.8%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.1%	5.8%	3.2%

The average commute time in Shelby County is 17.2 minutes, shorter than the 23.6 minutes in Illinois.

0.1% commute by public transit, lower than the 5.8% in Illinois. 2.1% commute by walking, lower than the 2.8% in Illinois.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau