Highway Trust FundFinancial Report for Fiscal Year 2004— Management's Discussion and Analysis — |
Table of Contents | Management's Discussion and Analysis | Financial Section | Appendices |
Highway CongestionTraffic congestion on the nation's highways has steadily increased over the past 20 years as the population of drivers, number of vehicles, and travel volume continue to increase at a faster rate than system capacity. According to the Texas Transportation Institute, drivers experience more than 3.5 billion hours of delay and waste 5.7 billion gallons of fuel annually due to traffic congestion. The economic impact of congestion, including wasted fuel and time, was estimated to be more than $63 billion in 2002 (the most current data). Over 61 percent of the cost was experienced in the 10 metropolitan areas with the most congestion. Slowing the growth of congestion and delay aids urban travelers' mobility and productivity and curbs economic inefficiencies induced by congestion. The following table depicts the performance measures and goals related to Highway Congestion.
FY 2004 Results: The Department met the performance target. The estimated percent of congested travel was 30.8 percent in 2003, a figure well below the anticipated increase to 31.8 percent. The estimated result was only 0.3 percent higher than in 2002 and below the anticipated increase for the second straight year. The results for the 2002-2003 period suggest that the overall rate of growth in traffic congestion nationwide is slowing, and is much less than recently projected increases of 0.7 percent annually. The following table depicts the FHWA supplemental performance measures and goals related to Highway Congestion.
FY 2004 Results: Data not yet available for these measures.
FHWAFHWA continued to focus states on the use of highly integrated ITS, which uses electronic information and communications technology to extend the capacity of the highway infrastructure to improve traffic flow and reduce bottlenecks. As a result, 62 of the original 75 metropolitan areas targeted in 1996 for deploying ITS have achieved a “medium” or “high” level of integrated ITS deployment. FHWA also advocated the use of the 511 travel telephone number information service, another ITS tool, to provide information to drivers on traffic problems in their geographic area. As a result, this information is now accessible to about 25 percent of the nation's population. FHWA began to develop a measure of travel times on significant freight corridors and border crossings to better understand and target efforts to keep freight moving as efficiently as possible in corridors and borders. The Freight Analysis Framework (FAF) was used to explore options to re-route traffic on the transportation network in the event of the loss of major transportation infrastructure. The Maritime Administration also used the FAF extensively to evaluate the potential modal diversion of freight from highway to seaway in support of proposed legislation. FHWA allocated funding to 108 projects under the National Corridor Planning and Development and Coordinated Border Infrastructure Grants Program to improve planning and project development in order to improve the flow of people and freight. Finally, FHWA was instrumental in guiding two Latin America Trade and Transportation studies, involving 13 and 16 state agencies respectively, to address the transportation response of the United States to increased trade with Latin America. |