Fairfield County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Fairfield County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Fairfield County spend about 54 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 223 hours, about 9.3 full days, spent commuting. That is 27% more time on the road than the Ohio average of 21.1 minutes each way, a difference of 5.7 minutes.

Fairfield County holds about 1.4% of Ohio's population but accounts for roughly 1.8% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Fairfield County would save about 89 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,771 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)
Fairfield County	26.8 min	53.6 min	223 hrs/yr	$6,927	1,288
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.

Commute Time Map: Ohio Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 26.8 minutes to get to work in Fairfield County. That's 20% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 86% of counties in Ohio

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 14.5% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Fairfield County

• Car: 83.0%
• Worked at Home: 14.5%
• Walked: 1.1%
• Other: 0.9%
• Public Transportation: 0.2% unusually low
• Bicycle: 0.2%
• Motorcycle: < 0.1%
• Taxi: < 0.1%

Public transit is unusually rare in Fairfield County: 6.0 times less than the Ohio average (0.2% vs 1.0%).

Commute Mode Trends in Fairfield County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Fairfield 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
• Bicycle
• Taxi
• Motorcycle

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Public Transportation	Bicycle	Taxi	Motorcycle
2009	93.1%	4.4%	1.5%	0.3%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%
2010	93.5%	4.1%	1.5%	0.3%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%
2011	93.1%	4.1%	1.5%	0.6%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%
2012	93.6%	3.7%	1.4%	0.8%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%
2013	93.3%	3.9%	1.6%	0.7%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%
2014	93.1%	4.1%	1.5%	0.7%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%
2015	93.0%	4.1%	1.5%	0.8%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%
2016	93.6%	4.0%	1.3%	0.4%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.2%
2017	93.4%	3.9%	1.5%	0.6%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2018	93.1%	4.4%	1.3%	0.6%	0.4%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2019	92.8%	4.4%	1.3%	0.7%	0.4%	0.2%	0.0%	0.1%
2020	90.5%	6.4%	1.4%	0.9%	0.3%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%
2021	88.3%	8.9%	1.3%	0.9%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%
2022	86.3%	10.8%	1.3%	0.8%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%
2023	85.3%	12.2%	1.2%	0.8%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%
2024	83.0%	14.5%	1.1%	0.9%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2012 at 93.6%. Overall it fell from 93.1% in 2009 to 83.0% in 2024, down 10.1 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 8 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Fairfield County: its share of workers rose from 4.4% in 2009 to 14.5% in 2024, up 10.1 percentage points. Most of that increase, 10.1 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in Fairfield County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Fairfield County?

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

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Fairfield County5.3% Ohio5.2%	5.3%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Fairfield County5.1% Ohio3.9%	5.1%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Fairfield County6.5% Ohio5.3%	6.5%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Fairfield County10.3% Ohio8.4%	10.3%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Fairfield County11.1% Ohio10.1%	11.1%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Fairfield County13.6% Ohio13.4%	13.6%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Fairfield County9.2% Ohio12.2%	9.2%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Fairfield County11.0% Ohio10.5%	11.0%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Fairfield County4.9% Ohio5.5%	4.9%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Fairfield County5.1% Ohio6.0%	5.1%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Fairfield County2.5% Ohio2.8%	2.5%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Fairfield County1.4% Ohio1.5%	1.4%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Fairfield County6.5% Ohio7.7%	6.5%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Fairfield County7.2% Ohio7.8%	7.2%

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

The busiest time to head out in Fairfield County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 13.6% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.4% across Ohio. Early starts are more common than in Ohio: 17.0% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.3% there. The morning rush looks much like Ohio's: 45.1% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.2% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (22.7%) 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 Fairfield 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 Fairfield 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 Fairfield County 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.

• Fairfield County
• Ohio
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Fairfield County	Ohio	United States
2009	7:27 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:27 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:29 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:29 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:30 AM	7:42 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:30 AM	7:42 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:29 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:26 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:27 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:23 AM	7:40 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:24 AM	7:40 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:22 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:23 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:24 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:27 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:26 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Fairfield County were on the road by 7:26 AM, 1 minute earlier than in 2009 (7:27 AM). Ohio followed the same path, with the typical start moving 3 minutes earlier. Commuters in Fairfield County now leave 12 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Fairfield County's commute time compare?

Metric	Fairfield County	Ohio	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	26.8 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	14.5%	13.0%	15.0%
Walked	1.1%	2.0%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.2%	1.0%	3.2%

The average commute time in Fairfield County is 26.8 minutes, longer than the 21.1 minutes in Ohio.

0.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 1.0% in Ohio. 1.1% commute by walking, lower than the 2.0% in Ohio.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau