Revised Vehicle Miles of Travel for Passenger Cars and Light Trucks, 1975 to 1993

Details

• Creators:
  Shelton, Terry S.T.
• Corporate Contributors:
  United States. Department of Transportation. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration ; United States. Energy Information Administration
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Vehicle miles of travel
  • Vehicle classification
  • Injury rates
  • Vehicle factors in crashes
  • Sport utility vehicles
  • Light trucks
  • Passenger cars
  • Fatality rates
  • Minivans
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.21949/1403844
• Resource Type:
  Research Paper
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States
• Corporate Publisher:
  United States. Department of Transportation. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
• Abstract:
  The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) historically has supplied registered vehicle and vehicle miles of travel (VMT) data for use with the National Center for Statistics and Analysis (NCSA) motor vehicle injury and fatality data. However, the boom in light truck sales (especially minivans and sport utility vehicles) did not appear to be reflected in the FHWA registered light truck numbers. When FHWA's figures for registered cars and light trucks were compared with R.L. Polk data for these vehicles, large variations were found. The explanation for the majority of the differences in the two data sources was different definitions for cars and light trucks. FHWA classifies minivans and utility vehicles as passenger cars, whereas Polk and National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHTSA) classify these vehicles as light trucks. Starting with the 1993 Traffic Safety Facts Report, NCSA began using Polk registered vehicle data for calculating fatality and injury rates per registered vehicle. Based on the methodology described in this note, total VMT and fatality rates for cars and trucks as reported by FHWA has been revised.
• Format:
  PDF
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/12567/dot_12567_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 38.33 KB]
• Collection(s):
  US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:4bf059b2586785d268353c16810744621f333ee0043b6bb410dd2387e62c15340ce7bf47bd25b798bcc395a6014afbc9f96967194cb7bccd59b7d3b374277546