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FHWA Home / Policy & Governmental Affairs / Highway Policy Information / Highway Statistics Series / 2009 / Office of Highway Policy Information

Highway Statistics 2009

Annual Vehicle Distance Traveled in Miles and Related Data - 2009 1/ By Highway Category and Vehicle Type

Revised: May 2018
Table VM-1

Excel Version (39 kb)
PDF Version (20 kb)

YEAR ITEM LIGHT DUTY
VEHICLES
SHORT WB 2/
MOTORCYCLES BUSES LIGHT DUTY
VEHICLES
LONG WB 2/
SINGLE-UNIT
TRUCKS 3/
COMBINATION
TRUCKS
SUBTOTALS ALL
MOTOR
VEHICLES
ALL
LIGHT DUTY
VEHICLES /2
SINGLE-UNIT
2-AXLE 6-TIRE
OR MORE AND
COMBINATION
TRUCKS
  Motor-Vehicle Travel: (millions of vehicle-miles)
2009 Interstate Rural 139,799 1,482 1,603 42,055 11,013 46,226 181,854 57,240 242,178
2009 Other Arterial Rural 229,576 3,298 2,075 89,306 19,387 29,217 318,883 48,604 372,860
2009 Other Rural 227,579 3,519 2,540 98,047 19,111 16,346 325,626 35,457 367,142
2009 All Rural 596,954 8,299 6,217 229,408 49,511 91,790 826,363 141,301 982,180
2009 Interstate Urban 334,718 2,318 2,171 87,098 15,577 32,917 421,815 48,494 474,798
2009 Other Urban 1,084,042 10,205 5,999 301,028 55,119 43,392 1,385,070 98,511 1,499,785
2009 All Urban 1,418,760 12,523 8,170 388,125 70,696 76,309 1,806,885 147,005 1,974,583
2009 Total Rural and Urban 5/ 2,015,714 20,822 14,387 617,534 120,207 168,100 2,633,248 288,306 2,956,764
2009 Number of motor vehicles registered 2/ 193,979,654 7,929,724 841,993 40,488,025 8,356,097 2,617,118 234,467,679 10,973,214 254,212,610
2009 Average miles traveled per vehicle 10,380 2,623 17,052 15,237 14,380 64,132 11,218 26,246 11,618
2009 Person-miles of travel (millions) 4/ 3,413,875 24,162 305,014 991,383 120,207 168,100 4,405,258 288,306 5,022,741
2009 Fuel consumed (thousand gallons) 85,560,236 474,909 1,868,792 35,763,797 16,342,208 28,130,088 121,324,034 44,472,296 168,140,031
2009 Average fuel consumption per vehicle (gallons) 441 60 2,219 883 1,956 10,748 517 4,053 661
2009 Average miles traveled per gallon of fuel consumed 23.8 43.2 7.2 17.4 7.4 6.0 21.7 6.5 17.6

1/ The FHWA estimates national trends by using State reported Highway Performance and Monitoring System (HPMS) data, fuel consumption data (MF-21 and MF-27), vehicle registration data (MV-1, MV-9, and MV-10), other data such as the R. L. Polk vehicle data, and a host of modeling techniques.

2/ Light Duty Vehicles Short WB - passenger cars, light trucks, vans and sport utility vehicles with a wheelbase (WB) equal to or less than 121 inches.  Light Duty Vehicles Long WB - large passenger cars, vans, pickup trucks, and sport/utility vehicles with wheelbases (WB) larger than 121 inches.  All Light Duty Vehicles - passenger cars, light trucks, vans and sport utility vehicles regardless of wheelbase.

3/ Single-Unit - single frame trucks that have 2-Axles and at least 6 tires or a gross vehicle weight rating exceeding 10,000 lbs.

4/  Starting with 2009 VM-1, vehicle occupancy is estimated by the FHWA from the 2009 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) and the annual RL Polk Vehicle registration data; For  single unit truck and heavy trucks, 1 motor vehicle miles travelled = 1 person-miles traveled.

5/ VMT data are based on the latest HPMS data available; it may not match previous published results.

The data now on the website for 2000-2006 were estimated using a methodology developed in the late 1990s. FHWA recently developed a new methodology and used it for this year's Highway Statistics. This methodology takes advantage of additional and improved information available beginning in 2007 when states were first required to report motorcycle data – before that time, the reporting was not mandatory and the data were missing for a few states. Also, the new methodology does not rely on data from the national vehicle inventory and use survey which provided critical data for the original methodology but was not collected in 2007 as planned.

In April 2011, FHWA recalculated the 2000-2008 data along with the 2009 data to estimate trends. However, after further review and consideration, the agency determined that it is more reliable to retain the original 2000-2006 estimates because the information available for those years does not fully meet the requirements of the new methodology. Thus, the original 2000-2006 estimates are now used, whereas the 2007-2009 data are still based on the new methodology.

Page last modified on October 11, 2018
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