Decatur County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Decatur County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Decatur County spend about 40 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 167 hours, about 7.0 full days, spent commuting. That is 5% less time on the road than the Indiana average of 21.1 minutes each way, a difference of 1.1 minutes.

Decatur County holds about 0.4% of Indiana's population and accounts for roughly 0.4% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Decatur County would save about 67 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,068 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)
Decatur County	20.0 min	40.0 min	167 hrs/yr	$5,171	1,013
Indiana	21.1 min	42.2 min	176 hrs/yr	$5,455	1,308
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: Indiana Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 20.0 minutes to get to work in Decatur County. That's 11% 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 10.9% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Decatur County

• Car: 86.3%
• Worked at Home: 10.9%
• Walked: 2.0%
• Other: 0.8%
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Decatur County, versus 0.1% in Indiana.

Public transit is essentially absent in Decatur County, versus 0.6% in Indiana.

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Decatur County, versus 0.1% in Indiana.

Biking is essentially absent in Decatur County, versus 0.4% in Indiana.

Commute Mode Trends in Decatur County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Decatur 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	93.3%	3.4%	1.7%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.3%	0.6%
2010	93.6%	3.7%	1.3%	0.2%	0.6%	0.0%	0.2%	0.6%
2011	94.1%	3.1%	1.3%	0.5%	0.4%	0.0%	0.2%	0.4%
2012	93.7%	3.4%	1.2%	0.4%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%	0.8%
2013	93.6%	3.4%	1.4%	0.8%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%	0.3%
2014	92.6%	3.5%	2.4%	0.7%	0.5%	0.0%	0.1%	0.3%
2015	94.3%	2.5%	1.6%	0.6%	0.6%	0.0%	0.1%	0.4%
2016	93.5%	2.9%	2.0%	0.6%	0.5%	0.0%	0.1%	0.5%
2017	93.4%	3.1%	2.0%	0.6%	0.6%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2018	94.6%	2.9%	1.4%	0.3%	0.6%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%
2019	94.5%	2.2%	2.0%	0.3%	0.5%	0.0%	0.4%	0.1%
2020	92.3%	4.7%	2.3%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%
2021	90.2%	7.1%	1.9%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%
2022	89.0%	7.5%	2.8%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2023	87.1%	9.0%	2.8%	0.8%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2024	86.3%	10.9%	2.0%	0.8%	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 peaked in 2018 at 94.6%. Overall it fell from 93.3% in 2009 to 86.3% in 2024, down 7.0 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 6 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Decatur County: its share of workers rose from 3.4% in 2009 to 10.9% in 2024, up 7.5 percentage points. Most of that increase, 8.7 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Biking lost the most ground, falling from 0.6% to 0.0% of workers (down 0.6 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Decatur County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Decatur County?

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

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Decatur County6.5% Indiana6.7%	6.5%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Decatur County7.5% Indiana4.5%	7.5%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Decatur County10.3% Indiana5.6%	10.3%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Decatur County7.9% Indiana8.5%	7.9%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Decatur County10.7% Indiana9.9%	10.7%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Decatur County12.1% Indiana13.8%	12.1%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Decatur County13.3% Indiana12.3%	13.3%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Decatur County7.0% Indiana9.6%	7.0%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Decatur County2.2% Indiana4.4%	2.2%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Decatur County2.8% Indiana5.2%	2.8%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Decatur County1.2% Indiana2.5%	1.2%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Decatur County0.8% Indiana1.2%	0.8%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Decatur County8.3% Indiana7.5%	8.3%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Decatur County9.5% Indiana8.0%	9.5%

Decatur County Indiana Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Decatur County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 13.3% of commuters leave home, compared with 12.3% across Indiana. Early starts are more common than in Indiana: 24.3% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 16.9% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Indiana: 43.0% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 45.7% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (22.6%) 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 Decatur 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 Decatur 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 Decatur County next to Indiana 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.

• Decatur County
• Indiana
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Decatur County	Indiana	United States
2009	7:17 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:15 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:15 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:14 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:23 AM	7:34 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:28 AM	7:34 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:18 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:18 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:18 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:21 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:22 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:27 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:26 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:31 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:25 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:18 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Decatur County were on the road by 7:18 AM, almost exactly the same as in 2009. Across Indiana, the typical start barely moved either. Commuters in Decatur County now leave 20 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 Decatur County has moved 4 minutes earlier.

How does Decatur County's commute time compare?

Metric	Decatur County	Indiana	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	20.0 min	21.1 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	10.9%	10.7%	15.0%
Walked	2.0%	1.9%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.6%	3.2%

The average commute time in Decatur County is 20.0 minutes, shorter than the 21.1 minutes in Indiana.

0.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.6% in Indiana. 2.0% commute by walking, higher than the 1.9% in Indiana.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau