Richland County Commute Time Map & Patterns

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Commuting in Richland County, 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, 8:04 PM

How many minutes is the average drive to work in Richland County?

Map AI 9/24/26, 8:04 PM

Commute Time Burden in Richland County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Richland County spend about 35 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 147 hours, about 6.1 full days, spent commuting. That is 16% less time on the road than the Ohio average of 21.1 minutes each way, a difference of 3.4 minutes.

Richland County holds about 1.1% of Ohio's population but accounts for roughly 0.9% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Richland County would save about 59 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $1,824 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)
Richland County	17.7 min	35.3 min	147 hrs/yr	$4,561	774
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

Fastest commutes among counties in Ohio

Hancock County (15.3 min)
Van Wert County (15.5 min)
Mercer County (16.0 min)

Slowest commutes among counties in Ohio

Morgan County (32.5 min)
Vinton County (32.0 min)
Brown County (32.0 min)

Compare commute times among different counties

Richland County

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Average commute time

On average, it takes 17.7 minutes to get to work in Richland County. That's 21% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 83% of counties in Ohio

The most common departure window is 07:30 AM – 07:59 AM, followed by 07:00 AM – 07:29 AM. Driving is the most common commute choice, followed by working from home. About 5.6% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Richland County

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

Commute Mode Trends in Richland County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Richland 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.

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	93.7%	2.8%	1.7%	0.5%	0.9%	0.2%	0.0%	0.3%
2010	94.2%	2.7%	1.7%	0.4%	0.5%	0.2%	0.1%	0.2%
2011	94.3%	2.5%	1.7%	0.4%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%
2012	94.4%	2.7%	1.7%	0.4%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2013	94.0%	2.6%	2.0%	0.4%	0.7%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2014	93.5%	3.0%	2.1%	0.4%	0.7%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2015	93.5%	2.9%	2.0%	0.5%	0.9%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2016	93.0%	3.1%	1.9%	0.5%	1.0%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%
2017	93.0%	3.1%	1.7%	0.7%	1.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%
2018	93.2%	3.4%	1.4%	0.6%	1.1%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%
2019	93.6%	3.2%	1.3%	0.5%	0.9%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%
2020	93.8%	3.3%	1.0%	0.7%	0.7%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%
2021	92.4%	4.1%	1.1%	1.1%	0.7%	0.2%	0.3%	0.0%
2022	92.6%	4.6%	1.2%	0.6%	0.4%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%
2023	92.0%	5.1%	1.2%	0.6%	0.5%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%
2024	91.4%	5.6%	1.1%	0.8%	0.6%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%

Driving was the most common way to get to work in every release from 2009 to 2024. Its share peaked in 2012 at 94.4%. Overall it fell from 93.7% in 2009 to 91.4% in 2024, down 2.3 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 2 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Richland County: its share of workers rose from 2.8% in 2009 to 5.6% in 2024, up 2.8 percentage points. Most of that increase, 2.4 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 1.7% to 1.1% of workers (down 0.6 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Richland County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Richland County?

The bars show when commuters in Richland 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		5.7%
5:00-5:29 AM		5.1%
5:30-5:59 AM		6.6%
6:00-6:29 AM		7.0%
6:30-6:59 AM		11.5%
7:00-7:29 AM		12.1%
7:30-7:59 AM		13.2%
8:00-8:29 AM		9.0%
8:30-8:59 AM		4.6%
9:00-9:59 AM		4.5%
10:00-10:59 AM		2.1%
11:00-11:59 AM		1.3%
12:00-3:59 PM		8.7%
4:00-11:59 PM		8.6%

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

The busiest time to head out in Richland County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 13.2% of commuters leave home, compared with 12.2% across Ohio. Early starts are more common than in Ohio: 17.4% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 14.3% there. The morning rush looks much like Ohio's: 45.7% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.2% there. About 1 in 4 commuters (25.2%) 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 Richland 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 Richland 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 Richland 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.

Median time commuters leave home, by ACS 5-year release year. Source: U.S. Census Bureau.

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Richland County	Ohio	United States
2009	7:36 AM	7:42 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:35 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:37 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:39 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:38 AM	7:42 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:37 AM	7:42 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:40 AM	7:42 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:38 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:37 AM	7:41 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:34 AM	7:40 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:32 AM	7:40 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:31 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:33 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:34 AM	7:39 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:33 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:35 AM	7:39 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Richland County were on the road by 7:35 AM, 2 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:36 AM). Ohio followed the same path, with the typical start moving 3 minutes earlier. Commuters in Richland County now leave 3 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 Richland County has moved 2 minutes later.

How does Richland County's commute time compare?

Metric	Richland County	Ohio	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	17.7 min	21.1 min	22.4 min
Departure Window	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM
Secondary Departure Window	07:00 AM – 07:29 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM	07:30 AM – 07:59 AM
Work From Home	5.6%	13.0%	15.0%
Walked	1.1%	2.0%	2.4%
Public Transit	0.6%	1.0%	3.2%

The average commute time in Richland County is 17.7 minutes, shorter than the 21.1 minutes in Ohio.

0.6% 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

Richland County, OH Commute Compared With Nearby Counties

Richland County, OH is the largest of the 6 counties compared here, 125,022 residents against a local median of 52,253. Where Richland County, OH breaks from the counties next to it is work from home, sitting 16% below the local median of 6.7% at 5.6%.

The counties themselves spread 8.3% on work from home, so Richland County, OH sits at one end of an already wide local range rather than apart from it. Richland County, OH has the 5th highest work from home of the 6 areas compared here.

Area	Population	One-way commute	Work from home	Typical departure
Richland County, OH	125,022	17.7 min #1/6	5.6% #5/6	7:35 AM #6/6
Ashland County, OH	52,253	18.9 min	6.5%	7:19 AM
Morrow County, OH	35,404	31.5 min	12.4%	7:10 AM
Huron County, OH	58,319	20.3 min	5.4%	7:14 AM
Crawford County, OH	41,711	19.0 min	6.7%	7:24 AM
Knox County, OH	63,140	18.8 min	13.7%	7:25 AM

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about commuting in Richland County, Ohio.

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

Commuters here spend an estimated 147 hours a year on the road, worth roughly $4,561 at a typical national wage. That's 16% less than the typical Ohio commuter spends.

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

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

How do commute times compare across counties in Ohio?

Among counties in Ohio, the shortest average commutes are in Hancock County (15.3 min), Van Wert County (15.5 min), Mercer County (16.0 min). The longest are in Morgan County (32.5 min), Vinton County (32.0 min), Brown County (32.0 min).