Putnam County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Putnam County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Putnam County spend about 42 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 175 hours, about 7.3 full days, spent commuting. That is 1% less time on the road than the Ohio average of 21.1 minutes each way, a difference of 0.1 minutes.

Putnam County 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 Putnam County would save about 70 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,168 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)
Putnam County	21.0 min	42.0 min	175 hrs/yr	$5,419	418
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 21.0 minutes to get to work in Putnam County. That's 6% 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 6.1% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Putnam County

• Car: 91.3%
• Worked at Home: 6.1%
• Walked: 2.0%
• Other: 0.3%
• Public Transportation: 0.2% unusually low
• Bicycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Motorcycle: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

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

Public transit is unusually rare in Putnam County: 4.9 times less than the Ohio average (0.2% vs 1.0%).

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

Biking is unusually rare in Putnam County: 4.9 times less than the Ohio average (0.1% vs 0.3%).

Commute Mode Trends in Putnam County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Putnam 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	94.7%	2.8%	1.5%	0.4%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.2%
2010	94.5%	3.2%	1.3%	0.3%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.2%
2011	94.4%	3.5%	1.0%	0.4%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2012	94.6%	3.2%	1.4%	0.2%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%	0.2%
2013	94.4%	3.4%	1.2%	0.3%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.3%
2014	94.2%	3.4%	1.2%	0.3%	0.6%	0.1%	0.0%	0.3%
2015	94.4%	2.7%	1.3%	0.3%	0.7%	0.1%	0.0%	0.3%
2016	94.2%	2.8%	1.6%	0.3%	0.7%	0.2%	0.0%	0.2%
2017	94.6%	3.0%	1.0%	0.2%	0.7%	0.3%	0.0%	0.2%
2018	94.2%	3.2%	1.2%	0.3%	0.6%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%
2019	94.4%	3.2%	1.2%	0.4%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%	0.2%
2020	93.7%	3.6%	1.7%	0.3%	0.4%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	93.9%	3.8%	1.6%	0.3%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2022	92.8%	4.9%	1.7%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2023	92.1%	5.7%	1.6%	0.5%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2024	91.3%	6.1%	2.0%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Overall its share fell from 94.7% in 2009 to 91.3% in 2024, down 3.4 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 3 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Putnam County: its share of workers rose from 2.8% in 2009 to 6.1% in 2024, up 3.3 percentage points. Most of that increase, 2.9 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Commute Start Times in Putnam County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Putnam County?

The bars show when commuters in Putnam 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 Putnam County4.6% Ohio5.2%	4.6%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Putnam County5.1% Ohio3.9%	5.1%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Putnam County7.8% Ohio5.3%	7.8%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Putnam County12.9% Ohio8.4%	12.9%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Putnam County12.6% Ohio10.1%	12.6%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Putnam County16.2% Ohio13.4%	16.2%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Putnam County13.1% Ohio12.2%	13.1%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Putnam County8.3% Ohio10.5%	8.3%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Putnam County2.1% Ohio5.5%	2.1%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Putnam County2.6% Ohio6.0%	2.6%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Putnam County1.0% Ohio2.8%	1.0%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Putnam County0.9% Ohio1.5%	0.9%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Putnam County5.0% Ohio7.7%	5.0%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Putnam County7.6% Ohio7.8%	7.6%

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

The busiest time to head out in Putnam County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 16.2% of commuters leave home, compared with 13.4% across Ohio. Early starts are more common than in Ohio: 17.6% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.3% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Ohio: 50.3% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.2% there. About 1 in 6 commuters (17.1%) 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 Putnam 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 Putnam 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 Putnam 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.

• Putnam County
• Ohio
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Putnam County	Ohio	United States
2009	7:19 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:21 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:20 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:18 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:18 AM	7:42 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:21 AM	7:42 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:20 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:21 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:23 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:25 AM	7:40 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:21 AM	7:40 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:22 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:20 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:17 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:15 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:13 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Putnam County were on the road by 7:13 AM, 7 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:19 AM). The shift is sharper than across Ohio, where the typical start moved 3 minutes earlier. Commuters in Putnam County now leave 25 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 Putnam County has moved 8 minutes earlier. The 2024 release is the earliest typical start for Putnam County in the whole series.

How does Putnam County's commute time compare?

Metric	Putnam County	Ohio	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	21.0 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	6.1%	13.0%	15.0%
Walked	2.0%	2.0%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.2%	1.0%	3.2%

The average commute time in Putnam County is about the same as in Ohio.

0.2% commute by public transit, lower than the 1.0% in Ohio. The share of commuters using walking is about the same as Ohio.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau