Delaware Commute Time Map & Patterns

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

You 9/24/26, 4:15 PM

How much time do drivers in Delaware spend on the road daily?

Map AI 9/24/26, 4:15 PM

Commute Time Burden in Delaware: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Delaware spend about 46 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 191 hours, about 7.9 full days, spent commuting. That is 8% more time on the road than the Ohio average of 21.1 minutes each way, a difference of 1.8 minutes.

Delaware holds about 0.3% of Ohio's population and accounts for roughly 0.3% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Delaware would save about 76 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,362 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)
Delaware	22.9 min	45.7 min	191 hrs/yr	$5,906	1,076
Ohio	21.1 min	42.2 min	176 hrs/yr	$5,447	1,212
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.

Delaware Commute Map

On average, it takes 22.9 minutes to get to work in Delaware. That's 2% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

The most common departure window is 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM, followed by 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 17.3% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Delaware

Riding a motorcycle is essentially absent in Delaware, versus 0.1% in Ohio.

Public transit is unusually rare in Delaware: 3.7 times less than the Ohio average (0.3% vs 1.0%).

Taking a taxi is unusually rare in Delaware: 5.2 times less than the Ohio average (0.0% vs 0.2%).

Commute Mode Trends in Delaware, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Delaware 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	Public Transportation	Bicycle	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	88.6%	5.4%	4.3%	0.6%	0.6%	0.2%	0.1%	0.2%
2010	89.7%	5.0%	3.8%	0.6%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.3%
2011	89.7%	6.0%	3.1%	0.4%	0.5%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%
2012	88.4%	5.9%	4.5%	0.5%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%
2013	88.5%	6.3%	4.1%	0.4%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%
2014	89.7%	5.3%	3.8%	0.4%	0.4%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2015	89.2%	5.9%	4.0%	0.4%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	88.9%	5.2%	4.8%	0.6%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	89.9%	5.2%	3.8%	0.4%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	88.9%	5.6%	4.4%	0.4%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	89.4%	5.7%	4.0%	0.4%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	86.7%	8.2%	4.2%	0.4%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	83.3%	11.4%	4.3%	0.4%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2022	81.1%	13.0%	4.9%	0.4%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	81.2%	14.1%	3.7%	0.4%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	77.9%	17.3%	3.6%	0.6%	0.3%	0.2%	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 2017 at 89.9%. Overall it fell from 88.6% in 2009 to 77.9% in 2024, down 10.7 percentage points. It has fallen in the latest release.

Working from home gained the most ground in Delaware: its share of workers rose from 5.4% in 2009 to 17.3% in 2024, up 11.9 percentage points. Most of that increase, 11.6 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 4.3% to 3.6% of workers (down 0.7 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Delaware

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Delaware?

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

12:00-4:59 AM		4.3%
5:00-5:29 AM		2.6%
5:30-5:59 AM		4.2%
6:00-6:29 AM		6.8%
6:30-6:59 AM		11.7%
7:00-7:29 AM		14.5%
7:30-7:59 AM		9.8%
8:00-8:29 AM		10.0%
8:30-8:59 AM		7.9%
9:00-9:59 AM		7.9%
10:00-10:59 AM		4.0%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.5%
12:00-3:59 PM		9.1%
4:00-11:59 PM		5.7%

Delaware Ohio Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Delaware is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 14.5% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.4% across Ohio. Early starts are less common than in Ohio: 11.1% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.3% there. The morning rush looks much like Ohio's: 46.0% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.2% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (28.3%) 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 Delaware, 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 Delaware 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 Delaware next to Ohio 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	Delaware	Ohio	United States
2009	7:46 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:43 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:40 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:41 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:43 AM	7:42 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:42 AM	7:42 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:40 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:41 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:34 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:40 AM	7:40 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:38 AM	7:40 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:54 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:52 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:54 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:49 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:48 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Delaware were on the road by 7:48 AM, 3 minutes later than in 2009 (7:46 AM). That goes against the trend across Ohio, where the typical commuter now leaves 3 minutes earlier than in 2009. Commuters in Delaware now leave 10 minutes later than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM). Since the 2019 release, which covers the years just before the pandemic, the typical start in Delaware has moved 10 minutes later.

How does Delaware's commute time compare?

Metric	Delaware	Ohio	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	22.9 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	06:30 AM – 06:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	17.3%	13.0%	15.0%
Walked	3.6%	2.0%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.3%	1.0%	3.2%

The average commute time in Delaware is 22.9 minutes, longer than the 21.1 minutes in Ohio.

0.3% commute by public transit, lower than the 1.0% in Ohio. 3.6% commute by walking, higher than the 2.0% in Ohio.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Delaware, Ohio.

Is living in Delaware, Ohio good for avoiding long commute costs?

Commuters here spend an estimated 191 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $5,906 at a typical national wage. That's 8% more than the typical Ohio commuter spends.

When is peak congestion during the morning commute in Delaware, Ohio?

Traffic peaks between 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM in Delaware, Ohio. Leaving before or after this window is the single easiest way to avoid the heaviest local congestion, though 06:30 AM – 06:59 AM also sees a secondary bump.

How common is public transit use in Delaware, Ohio?

Public transit usage is significantly lower here than typical: about 0.3% of commuters use it versus 1.0% in Ohio, meaning a personal vehicle is essential for most workers.

How much time do residents in Delaware, Ohio save by working from home?

About 17.3% of workers here already work from home. Working from home just 2 days a week in Delaware would save about 76 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,362 at the same national wage assumption used above.