Chester County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Chester County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Chester County spend about 57 minutes on the road round trip each working day. Over a typical 250-day work year, that adds up to roughly 238 hours, about 9.9 full days, spent commuting. That is 27% more time on the road than the Tennessee average of 22.4 minutes each way, a difference of 6.1 minutes.

Chester County holds about 0.2% of Tennessee's population but accounts for roughly 0.3% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Chester County would save about 95 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,949 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)
Chester County	28.5 min	57.1 min	238 hrs/yr	$7,374	484
Tennessee	22.4 min	44.8 min	187 hrs/yr	$5,785	1,225
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: Tennessee Counties

Compare commute times among different counties

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On average, it takes 28.5 minutes to get to work in Chester County. That's 27% longer than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Slower than 72% of counties in Tennessee

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 9.4% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Chester County

• Car: 88.8%
• Worked at Home: 9.4%
• Walked: 1.1%
• Other: 0.3%
• Motorcycle: 0.2% unusually high
• Bicycle: 0.1%
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Riding a motorcycle is unusually common in Chester County: 3.7 times more than the Tennessee average (0.2% vs 0.0%).

Public transit is unusually rare in Chester County: 5.1 times less than the Tennessee average (0.1% vs 0.4%).

Taking a taxi is essentially absent in Chester County, versus 0.1% in Tennessee.

Commute Mode Trends in Chester County, 2009-2024

This chart shows how workers in Chester 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
• Motorcycle
• Public Transportation
• Bicycle
• Taxi

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Other	Motorcycle	Public Transportation	Bicycle	Taxi
2009	92.2%	4.3%	3.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2010	91.9%	4.8%	2.8%	0.0%	0.2%	0.0%	0.4%	0.0%
2011	92.0%	5.5%	1.7%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.6%	0.0%
2012	90.6%	5.6%	2.4%	0.7%	0.1%	0.1%	0.6%	0.0%
2013	92.0%	4.3%	1.9%	0.9%	0.3%	0.1%	0.5%	0.0%
2014	92.9%	3.3%	2.2%	0.6%	0.4%	0.2%	0.5%	0.0%
2015	92.6%	3.1%	2.8%	0.6%	0.5%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2016	91.8%	3.6%	3.0%	0.7%	0.6%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	92.4%	3.0%	2.7%	1.0%	0.7%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	92.1%	3.5%	2.7%	1.2%	0.3%	0.2%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	92.2%	4.9%	1.6%	0.7%	0.5%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2020	93.2%	4.9%	1.0%	0.5%	0.3%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2021	91.2%	6.8%	0.6%	0.6%	0.3%	0.0%	0.4%	0.0%
2022	91.9%	6.3%	1.0%	0.1%	0.5%	0.0%	0.3%	0.0%
2023	90.0%	8.4%	1.0%	0.1%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2024	88.8%	9.4%	1.1%	0.3%	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 2020 at 93.2%. Overall it fell from 92.2% in 2009 to 88.8% in 2024, down 3.4 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 2 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Chester County: its share of workers rose from 4.3% in 2009 to 9.4% in 2024, up 5.1 percentage points. Most of that increase, 4.5 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking lost the most ground, falling from 3.4% to 1.1% of workers (down 2.3 percentage points).

Commute Start Times in Chester County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Chester County?

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

12:00-4:59 AM	12:00-4:59 AM Chester County8.0% Tennessee5.8%	8.0%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Chester County4.8% Tennessee4.4%	4.8%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Chester County4.4% Tennessee5.5%	4.4%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Chester County13.0% Tennessee9.9%	13.0%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Chester County14.9% Tennessee10.1%	14.9%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Chester County23.2% Tennessee14.7%	23.2%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Chester County7.3% Tennessee11.5%	7.3%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Chester County6.8% Tennessee10.1%	6.8%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Chester County2.3% Tennessee4.5%	2.3%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Chester County1.9% Tennessee5.7%	1.9%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Chester County1.5% Tennessee2.5%	1.5%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Chester County0.6% Tennessee1.2%	0.6%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Chester County5.8% Tennessee6.8%	5.8%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Chester County5.6% Tennessee7.4%	5.6%

Chester County Tennessee Source: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 5-year estimates

The busiest time to head out in Chester County is 7:00-7:29 AM, when 23.2% of commuters leave home, compared with 14.7% across Tennessee. Early starts are more common than in Tennessee: 17.2% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 15.7% there. The morning rush is more concentrated than in Tennessee: 52.2% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.4% there. About 1 in 7 commuters (15.3%) 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 Chester 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 Chester 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 Chester County next to Tennessee 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.

• Chester County
• Tennessee
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Chester County	Tennessee	United States
2009	7:13 AM	7:30 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:13 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:15 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:11 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:12 AM	7:30 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:21 AM	7:30 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:23 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:26 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:27 AM	7:29 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:29 AM	7:29 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:23 AM	7:28 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:15 AM	7:29 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:13 AM	7:29 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:03 AM	7:29 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:03 AM	7:29 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:06 AM	7:29 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Chester County were on the road by 7:06 AM, 7 minutes earlier than in 2009 (7:13 AM). Across Tennessee, the typical start barely moved over the same years. Commuters in Chester County now leave 31 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 Chester County has moved 16 minutes earlier.

How does Chester County's commute time compare?

Metric	Chester County	Tennessee	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	28.5 min	22.4 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	9.4%	12.9%	15.0%
Walked	1.1%	1.2%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.4%	3.2%

The average commute time in Chester County is 28.5 minutes, longer than the 22.4 minutes in Tennessee.

0.1% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.4% in Tennessee. 1.1% commute by walking, lower than the 1.2% in Tennessee.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau