Wells County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Wells County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Wells County spend about 41 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 170 hours, about 7.1 full days, spent commuting. That is 3% less time on the road than the Indiana average of 21.1 minutes each way, a difference of 0.7 minutes.

Wells 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 Wells County would save about 68 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,108 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)
Wells County	20.4 min	40.8 min	170 hrs/yr	$5,270	820
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 20.4 minutes to get to work in Wells County. That's 9% 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 5.9% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Wells County

• Car: 91.0%
• Worked at Home: 5.9%
• Walked: 1.5%
• Motorcycle: 0.5% unusually high
• Other: 0.5%
• Taxi: 0.4%
• Public Transportation: 0.2% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is unusually common in Wells County: 6.0 times more than the Indiana average (0.5% vs 0.1%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Wells County: 3.9 times less than the Indiana average (0.2% vs 0.6%).

Biking is unusually rare in Wells County: 6.0 times less than the Indiana average (0.1% vs 0.4%).

Commute Mode Trends in Wells County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Motorcycle	Other	Taxi	Public Transportation	Bicycle
2009	92.8%	2.8%	2.4%	0.3%	0.8%	0.3%	0.1%	0.6%
2010	92.8%	3.6%	1.8%	0.3%	0.5%	0.2%	0.1%	0.7%
2011	93.2%	3.5%	1.4%	0.4%	0.6%	0.1%	0.1%	0.7%
2012	93.1%	2.8%	1.8%	0.3%	1.0%	0.2%	0.1%	0.7%
2013	93.0%	3.3%	1.6%	0.1%	1.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.6%
2014	91.7%	4.3%	2.2%	0.0%	1.1%	0.0%	0.1%	0.6%
2015	92.9%	3.5%	2.1%	0.1%	1.0%	0.0%	0.1%	0.4%
2016	92.6%	3.8%	2.3%	0.2%	0.7%	0.0%	0.1%	0.3%
2017	93.7%	4.1%	1.5%	0.2%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%
2018	93.7%	3.4%	1.6%	0.2%	0.5%	0.0%	0.4%	0.2%
2019	93.7%	4.1%	0.9%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%	0.4%	0.3%
2020	94.0%	4.1%	0.8%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%	0.4%	0.3%
2021	93.0%	4.6%	0.9%	0.2%	0.3%	0.0%	0.5%	0.4%
2022	92.5%	4.8%	1.0%	0.7%	0.3%	0.0%	0.5%	0.3%
2023	91.8%	5.9%	1.3%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%	0.2%
2024	91.0%	5.9%	1.5%	0.5%	0.5%	0.4%	0.2%	0.1%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2020 at 94.0%. Overall it fell from 92.8% in 2009 to 91.0% in 2024, down 1.8 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 4 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Wells County: its share of workers rose from 2.8% in 2009 to 5.9% in 2024, up 3.1 percentage points.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 2.4% to 1.5% of workers (down 0.9 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Wells County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Wells County?

The bars show when commuters in Wells 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 Wells County6.2% Indiana6.7%	6.2%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Wells County4.0% Indiana4.5%	4.0%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Wells County7.0% Indiana5.6%	7.0%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Wells County10.1% Indiana8.5%	10.1%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Wells County12.1% Indiana9.9%	12.1%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Wells County16.8% Indiana13.8%	16.8%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Wells County12.4% Indiana12.3%	12.4%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Wells County7.8% Indiana9.6%	7.8%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Wells County4.9% Indiana4.4%	4.9%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Wells County2.4% Indiana5.2%	2.4%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Wells County1.7% Indiana2.5%	1.7%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Wells County0.6% Indiana1.2%	0.6%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Wells County6.8% Indiana7.5%	6.8%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Wells County7.2% Indiana8.0%	7.2%

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

The busiest time to head out in Wells County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 16.8% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.8% across Indiana. Early starts are about as common as in Indiana: 17.2% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 16.9% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Indiana: 49.1% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 45.7% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (18.7%) 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 Wells 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 Wells 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 Wells 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.

• Wells County
• Indiana
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Wells County	Indiana	United States
2009	7:19 AM	7:31 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:20 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:19 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:20 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:18 AM	7:34 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:24 AM	7:34 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:23 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:20 AM	7:34 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:21 AM	7:33 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:23 AM	7:33 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:18 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:18 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:20 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:22 AM	7:32 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:21 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:19 AM	7:32 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Wells County were on the road by 7:19 AM, almost exactly the same as in 2009. Across Indiana, the typical start barely moved either. Commuters in Wells County now leave 19 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Wells County's commute time compare?

Metric	Wells County	Indiana	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	20.4 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	5.9%	10.7%	15.0%
Walked	1.5%	1.9%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.2%	0.6%	3.2%

The average commute time in Wells County is 20.4 minutes, shorter than the 21.1 minutes in Indiana.

0.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.6% in Indiana. 1.5% commute by walking, lower than the 1.9% in Indiana.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau