Knox County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Knox County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Knox County spend about 38 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 157 hours, about 6.5 full days, spent commuting. That is 11% less time on the road than the Ohio average of 21.1 minutes each way, a difference of 2.2 minutes.

Knox County holds about 0.5% of Ohio's population and accounts for roughly 0.5% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Knox County would save about 63 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,947 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)
Knox County	18.8 min	37.7 min	157 hrs/yr	$4,868	621
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 18.8 minutes to get to work in Knox County. That's 16% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 74% of counties in Ohio

The most common departure window is 06:00 AM – 06:29 AM, followed by 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 13.7% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Knox County

• Car: 80.7%
• Worked at Home: 13.7%
• Walked: 4.0%
• Other: 1.2%
• Public Transportation: 0.2% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1%
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Public transit is unusually rare in Knox County: 4.3 times less than the Ohio average (0.2% vs 1.0%).

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Knox County, versus 0.2% in Ohio.

Biking is unusually rare in Knox County: 5.3 times less than the Ohio average (0.1% vs 0.3%).

Commute Mode Trends in Knox County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Public Transportation	Motorcycle	Bicycle	Taxi
2009	86.8%	6.5%	5.0%	0.9%	0.5%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2010	86.3%	6.9%	5.3%	1.0%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2011	87.5%	6.1%	5.0%	0.7%	0.2%	0.2%	0.3%	0.1%
2012	87.7%	6.0%	4.8%	0.8%	0.3%	0.2%	0.3%	0.1%
2013	87.4%	5.9%	5.4%	0.7%	0.3%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%
2014	88.6%	5.8%	4.5%	0.6%	0.1%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%
2015	87.9%	5.5%	4.9%	1.1%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2016	87.5%	6.0%	4.7%	1.0%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2017	87.8%	5.5%	4.9%	1.0%	0.5%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%
2018	88.1%	5.1%	4.4%	1.5%	0.5%	0.2%	0.3%	0.0%
2019	87.3%	5.4%	4.4%	1.6%	0.7%	0.2%	0.3%	0.0%
2020	87.9%	6.4%	3.3%	1.3%	0.6%	0.1%	0.3%	0.0%
2021	86.4%	8.6%	3.2%	1.3%	0.2%	0.1%	0.2%	0.0%
2022	84.8%	10.1%	2.9%	1.5%	0.4%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%
2023	83.1%	11.4%	3.7%	1.3%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2024	80.7%	13.7%	4.0%	1.2%	0.2%	0.1%	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 2014 at 88.6%. Overall it fell from 86.8% in 2009 to 80.7% in 2024, down 6.1 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 4 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Knox County: its share of workers rose from 6.5% in 2009 to 13.7% in 2024, up 7.2 percentage points. Most of that increase, 8.3 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 5.0% to 4.0% of workers (down 1.0 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Knox County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Knox County?

The bars show when commuters in Knox 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 Knox County7.6% Ohio5.2%	7.6%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Knox County5.0% Ohio3.9%	5.0%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Knox County5.8% Ohio5.3%	5.8%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Knox County11.8% Ohio8.4%	11.8%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Knox County10.9% Ohio10.1%	10.9%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Knox County10.7% Ohio13.4%	10.7%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Knox County11.8% Ohio12.2%	11.8%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Knox County8.9% Ohio10.5%	8.9%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Knox County4.0% Ohio5.5%	4.0%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Knox County6.0% Ohio6.0%	6.0%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Knox County1.5% Ohio2.8%	1.5%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Knox County1.6% Ohio1.5%	1.6%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Knox County6.3% Ohio7.7%	6.3%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Knox County8.2% Ohio7.8%	8.2%

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

The busiest time to head out in Knox County is 6:00-6:29 AM, when 11.8% of commuters leave home, compared with 8.4% across Ohio. Early starts are more common than in Ohio: 18.4% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.3% there. The morning rush is more spread out than in Ohio: 42.3% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.2% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (23.5%) 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 Knox 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 Knox 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 Knox 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.

• Knox County
• Ohio
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Knox County	Ohio	United States
2009	7:29 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:28 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:28 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:28 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:31 AM	7:42 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:31 AM	7:42 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:34 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:37 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:39 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:36 AM	7:40 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:36 AM	7:40 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:37 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:32 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:26 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:24 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:25 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Knox County were on the road by 7:25 AM, 4 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:29 AM). Ohio followed the same path, with the typical start moving 3 minutes earlier. Commuters in Knox County now leave 13 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 Knox County has moved 11 minutes earlier.

How does Knox County's commute time compare?

Metric	Knox County	Ohio	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	18.8 min	21.1 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	06:00 AM – 06:29 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	13.7%	13.0%	15.0%
Walked	4.0%	2.0%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.2%	1.0%	3.2%

The average commute time in Knox County is 18.8 minutes, shorter than the 21.1 minutes in Ohio.

0.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 1.0% in Ohio. 4.0% commute by walking, higher than the 2.0% in Ohio.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau