DeKalb County Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in DeKalb County, Indiana: how long it takes, when people leave home and how they get to work. Ask Map AI about any address.

You 9/24/26, 8:30 PM

How many minutes is the average drive to work in DeKalb County?

Map AI 9/24/26, 8:30 PM

Commute Time Burden in DeKalb County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in DeKalb County spend about 37 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 152 hours, about 6.3 full days, spent commuting. That is 14% less time on the road than the Indiana average of 21.1 minutes each way, a difference of 2.9 minutes.

DeKalb County holds about 0.6% of Indiana's population and accounts for roughly 0.6% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in DeKalb County would save about 61 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,887 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)
DeKalb County	18.3 min	36.5 min	152 hrs/yr	$4,718	1,480
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

Fastest commutes among counties in Indiana

Knox County (15.8 min)
Howard County (15.9 min)
Daviess County (16.3 min)

Slowest commutes among counties in Indiana

Crawford County (33.6 min)
Brown County (32.6 min)
Franklin County (31.9 min)

Compare commute times among different counties

DeKalb County

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Average commute time

On average, it takes 18.3 minutes to get to work in DeKalb County. That's 19% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 74% of counties in Indiana

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 5.0% work from home.

How People Get to Work in DeKalb County

Public transit is unusually rare in DeKalb County: 4.2 times less than the Indiana average (0.2% vs 0.6%).

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in DeKalb County: 642571.8 times less than the Indiana average (0.0% vs 0.1%).

Commute Mode Trends in DeKalb County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in DeKalb 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.

Share of workers aged 16 and over, by ACS 5-year release year. Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Bicycle	Public Transportation	Motorcycle	Taxi
2009	93.1%	3.8%	1.7%	0.4%	0.4%	0.1%	0.4%	0.0%
2010	92.5%	4.1%	2.1%	0.3%	0.4%	0.1%	0.4%	0.0%
2011	92.5%	3.5%	2.2%	0.6%	0.6%	0.2%	0.3%	0.0%
2012	93.2%	2.9%	2.0%	0.7%	0.6%	0.1%	0.4%	0.0%
2013	93.5%	2.7%	1.9%	0.8%	0.6%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%
2014	94.1%	2.5%	1.4%	1.2%	0.5%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%
2015	94.4%	2.3%	1.2%	0.9%	0.5%	0.2%	0.4%	0.0%
2016	94.8%	2.4%	1.2%	0.7%	0.4%	0.1%	0.4%	0.0%
2017	94.8%	2.9%	1.1%	0.6%	0.2%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2018	95.7%	2.2%	0.8%	0.6%	0.4%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2019	95.2%	2.7%	0.9%	0.6%	0.4%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2020	95.3%	3.2%	0.8%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	94.0%	3.9%	1.0%	0.8%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	93.4%	3.8%	1.1%	1.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2023	93.3%	4.4%	1.0%	0.9%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2024	92.3%	5.0%	1.1%	1.0%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%	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 95.7%. Overall it fell from 93.1% in 2009 to 92.3% in 2024, down 0.8 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 4 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in DeKalb County: its share of workers rose from 3.8% in 2009 to 5.0% in 2024, up 1.2 percentage points. Most of that increase, 2.3 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 1.7% to 1.1% of workers (down 0.6 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in DeKalb County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in DeKalb County?

The bars show when commuters in DeKalb 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		10.2%
5:00-5:29 AM		5.8%
5:30-5:59 AM		7.9%
6:00-6:29 AM		8.1%
6:30-6:59 AM		9.9%
7:00-7:29 AM		13.0%
7:30-7:59 AM		11.4%
8:00-8:29 AM		6.1%
8:30-8:59 AM		1.7%
9:00-9:59 AM		4.4%
10:00-10:59 AM		1.0%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.6%
12:00-3:59 PM		9.7%
4:00-11:59 PM		9.3%

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

The busiest time to head out in DeKalb County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 13.0% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.8% across Indiana. Early starts are more common than in Indiana: 23.9% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 16.9% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Indiana: 40.4% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 45.7% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (25.9%) 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 DeKalb 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 DeKalb 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 DeKalb 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.

Median time commuters leave home, by ACS 5-year release year. Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Show typical departure times by year

Year	DeKalb County	Indiana	United States
2009	7:25 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:25 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:26 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:27 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:27 AM	7:34 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:28 AM	7:34 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:28 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:26 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:29 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:30 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:27 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:24 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:25 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:23 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:20 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:19 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in DeKalb County were on the road by 7:19 AM, 7 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:25 AM). Across Indiana, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in DeKalb 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 DeKalb County has moved 9 minutes earlier. The 2024 release is the earliest typical start for DeKalb County in the whole series.

How does DeKalb County's commute time compare?

Metric	DeKalb County	Indiana	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	18.3 min	21.1 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	5.0%	10.7%	15.0%
Walked	1.1%	1.9%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.2%	0.6%	3.2%

The average commute time in DeKalb County is 18.3 minutes, shorter than the 21.1 minutes in Indiana.

0.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.6% in Indiana. 1.1% commute by walking, lower than the 1.9% in Indiana.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

DeKalb County, IN Commute Compared With Nearby Counties

DeKalb County, IN is typical in size for this group, 43,807 residents against a local median of 40,805, so the measures below are close to a like for like comparison. There is no headline here. Every measure below sits within 15% of the median across the nearest counties, which makes DeKalb County, IN an unremarkable member of its own neighbourhood rather than an outlier in it.

The largest of those small differences is work from home, 12% below the local median at 5.0% against 5.7%. DeKalb County, IN has the 4th highest work from home of the 6 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
DeKalb County, IN	43,807	18.3 min #3/6	5.0% #4/6	7:19 AM #3/6
Steuben County, IN	34,726	17.0 min	5.7%	7:26 AM
Allen County, IN	392,386	20.2 min	9.2%	7:43 AM
Noble County, IN	47,495	22.3 min	4.6%	6:56 AM
Williams County, OH	36,719	17.0 min	2.7%	7:19 AM
LaGrange County, IN	40,805	20.2 min	8.8%	5:43 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in DeKalb County, Indiana.

Is commuting expensive in DeKalb County, Indiana?

Commuters here spend an estimated 152 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $4,718 at a typical national wage. That's 14% less than the typical Indiana commuter spends.

What time should you leave for work to avoid traffic in DeKalb County, Indiana?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in DeKalb County, Indiana. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM also sees a secondary bump.

How common is public transit use in DeKalb County, Indiana?

Public transit usage is significantly lower here than typical: about 0.2% of commuters use it versus 0.6% in Indiana, meaning a personal vehicle is essential for most workers.

Which counties in Indiana have the fastest and slowest commutes?

Among counties in Indiana, the shortest average commutes are in Knox County (15.8 min), Howard County (15.9 min), Daviess County (16.3 min). The longest are in Crawford County (33.6 min), Brown County (32.6 min), Franklin County (31.9 min).