NHTS Brief: Is Congestion Slowing Us Down?: National Household Travel Survey

Details

• Alternative Title:
  National Household Travel Survey
• Corporate Creators:
  United States. Federal Highway Administration
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Statistics
  • Travel surveys
  • Travel behavior
  • Data collection
  • Data analysis
  • Traffic congestion
  • Congestion management systems
• Series:
  National Household Travel Survey (NHTS)
• Resource Type:
  Brief
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States
• Corporate Publisher:
  United States. Federal Highway Administration
• Abstract:
  The U.S. transportation system’s quality and pervasiveness are almost transparent to us as we move between jobs, markets, education, healthcare, and leisure activities. But the transparency ends when congestion occurs—the system breaks down as too many vehicles try to move through at the same time. Congestion reduces mobility, increases auto-operating costs, adds to air pollution, and causes stress. Congestion is considered one of the major urban transportation problems. Commuters know about congestion--work trips are particularly concentrated in time and space. Nearly 30 percent of the 130 million workers in the U.S. usually leave for work between 7:00 and 8:00 am. During the 80s and early 90s, due to a combination of decentralization of workplaces and the shift to driving alone to work, both commute distances and speed of travel to work increased. However, the 2001 NHTS data shows a leveling off of commuting distances, and a real decline in commute speeds (see Exhibit 1).
• Format:
  PDF
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/58872/dot_58872_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 90.04 KB]
• Collection(s):
  Federal Highway Administration
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:3d5a1ffe4bccdcdae2a65a247550a77b84044ca9a8d639dedcf9046c2c5c7d2fa360f998cdf2b92f6e542045880713f51dc1de90252caa2b3596c0633e61e68d