Franklin County Commute Time Map & Patterns

Commute Time Burden in Franklin County: Annual Hours and Cost

Commuters in Franklin 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 174 hours, about 7.3 full days, spent commuting. That is 7% less time on the road than the Tennessee average of 22.4 minutes each way, a difference of 1.5 minutes.

Franklin County holds about 0.6% of Tennessee's population and accounts for roughly 0.6% of its total commuting time.

Working from home just 2 days a week in Franklin County would save about 70 hours of drive time a year, worth roughly $2,158 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)
Franklin County	20.9 min	41.8 min	174 hrs/yr	$5,396	813
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 20.9 minutes to get to work in Franklin County. That's 7% shorter than the 22.4-minute U.S. average.

Faster than 77% of counties in Tennessee

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 8.3% work from home.

How People Get to Work in Franklin County

• Car: 87.9%
• Worked at Home: 8.3%
• Walked: 2.6%
• Bicycle: 0.7% unusually high
• Other: 0.3%
• Motorcycle: 0.1%
• Public Transportation: < 0.1% unusually low
• Taxi: < 0.1% unusually low

Public transit is essentially absent in Franklin County, versus 0.4% in Tennessee.

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

Biking is unusually common in Franklin County: 6.8 times more than the Tennessee average (0.7% vs 0.1%).

Commute Mode Trends in Franklin County, 2009-2024

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

Show commute mode data by year

Year	Car	Worked at Home	Walked	Bicycle	Other	Motorcycle	Public Transportation	Taxi
2009	93.2%	3.7%	1.7%	0.7%	0.5%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2010	92.9%	3.7%	2.1%	0.9%	0.4%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2011	92.4%	3.9%	2.5%	0.5%	0.3%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%
2012	92.1%	4.2%	2.5%	0.5%	0.3%	0.2%	0.2%	0.0%
2013	92.5%	3.8%	2.6%	0.5%	0.3%	0.2%	0.1%	0.0%
2014	93.6%	3.1%	2.3%	0.3%	0.5%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2015	93.3%	3.0%	2.6%	0.2%	0.8%	0.1%	0.0%	0.0%
2016	93.4%	2.6%	2.9%	0.2%	0.9%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2017	93.1%	2.4%	3.7%	0.3%	0.5%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2018	92.8%	2.6%	3.9%	0.4%	0.4%	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
2019	91.9%	3.4%	4.0%	0.3%	0.3%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2020	90.1%	5.2%	4.2%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%	0.1%	0.0%
2021	88.9%	6.4%	3.8%	0.7%	0.0%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2022	88.8%	7.7%	2.4%	0.5%	0.4%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2023	88.4%	7.6%	2.8%	0.6%	0.3%	0.1%	0.1%	0.0%
2024	87.9%	8.3%	2.6%	0.7%	0.3%	0.1%	0.0%	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 93.6%. Overall it fell from 93.2% in 2009 to 87.9% in 2024, down 5.3 percentage points. It has fallen in each of the last 8 releases.

Working from home gained the most ground in Franklin County: its share of workers rose from 3.7% in 2009 to 8.3% in 2024, up 4.6 percentage points. Most of that increase, 4.9 points, came in the releases after 2019, which include the pandemic years.

Walking peaked at 4.2% in 2020 and has since fallen back to 2.6%.

Commute Start Times in Franklin County

What Time Do People Leave for Work in Franklin County?

The bars show when commuters in Franklin 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 Franklin County8.5% Tennessee5.8%	8.5%
5:00-5:29 AM	5:00-5:29 AM Franklin County3.9% Tennessee4.4%	3.9%
5:30-5:59 AM	5:30-5:59 AM Franklin County7.7% Tennessee5.5%	7.7%
6:00-6:29 AM	6:00-6:29 AM Franklin County10.5% Tennessee9.9%	10.5%
6:30-6:59 AM	6:30-6:59 AM Franklin County11.3% Tennessee10.1%	11.3%
7:00-7:29 AM	7:00-7:29 AM Franklin County12.1% Tennessee14.7%	12.1%
7:30-7:59 AM	7:30-7:59 AM Franklin County13.5% Tennessee11.5%	13.5%
8:00-8:29 AM	8:00-8:29 AM Franklin County7.8% Tennessee10.1%	7.8%
8:30-8:59 AM	8:30-8:59 AM Franklin County3.2% Tennessee4.5%	3.2%
9:00-9:59 AM	9:00-9:59 AM Franklin County3.6% Tennessee5.7%	3.6%
10:00-10:59 AM	10:00-10:59 AM Franklin County1.6% Tennessee2.5%	1.6%
11:00-11:59 AM	11:00-11:59 AM Franklin County1.1% Tennessee1.2%	1.1%
12:00-3:59 PM	12:00-3:59 PM Franklin County8.1% Tennessee6.8%	8.1%
4:00-11:59 PM	4:00-11:59 PM Franklin County7.0% Tennessee7.4%	7.0%

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

The busiest time to head out in Franklin County is 7:30-7:59 AM, when 13.5% of commuters leave home, compared with 11.5% across Tennessee. Early starts are more common than in Tennessee: 20.1% of commuters leave before 6 AM, versus 15.7% there. The morning rush looks much like Tennessee's: 44.8% of departures fall in the two hours from 6:30 to 8:29 AM, versus 46.4% there. About 1 in 5 commuters (21.4%) 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 Franklin 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 Franklin 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 Franklin 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.

• Franklin County
• Tennessee
• United States

Show typical departure times by year

Year	Franklin County	Tennessee	United States
2009	7:21 AM	7:30 AM	7:37 AM
2010	7:19 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2011	7:17 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2012	7:16 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2013	7:16 AM	7:30 AM	7:39 AM
2014	7:17 AM	7:30 AM	7:39 AM
2015	7:17 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2016	7:18 AM	7:30 AM	7:38 AM
2017	7:19 AM	7:29 AM	7:38 AM
2018	7:19 AM	7:29 AM	7:37 AM
2019	7:20 AM	7:28 AM	7:37 AM
2020	7:21 AM	7:29 AM	7:37 AM
2021	7:24 AM	7:29 AM	7:37 AM
2022	7:26 AM	7:29 AM	7:37 AM
2023	7:26 AM	7:29 AM	7:38 AM
2024	7:20 AM	7:29 AM	7:38 AM

In 2024, half of commuters in Franklin County were on the road by 7:20 AM, almost exactly the same as in 2009. Across Tennessee, the typical start barely moved either. Commuters in Franklin County now leave 18 minutes earlier than the typical American commuter (7:38 AM).

How does Franklin County's commute time compare?

Metric	Franklin County	Tennessee	US Average
Avg. Commute Time	20.9 min	22.4 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	8.3%	12.9%	15.0%
Walked	2.6%	1.2%	2.4%
Public Transit	< 0.1%	0.4%	3.2%

The average commute time in Franklin County is 20.9 minutes, shorter than the 22.4 minutes in Tennessee.

0.0% commute by public transit, lower than the 0.4% in Tennessee. 2.6% commute by walking, higher than the 1.2% in Tennessee.

Source: U.S. Census Bureau