THE FHWA STATISTICAL PROGRAM
For more than a century, an essential element of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) mission has been collecting data useful to the President and Congress in developing and managing the Nation's transportation program. The FHWA originated in 1893 with the establishment of the Office of Road Inquiry (ORI). In 1904, the ORI inventoried all the roads in the United States outside the cities. Through questionnaires mailed to county officials, the investigation went far beyond merely tabulating road mileage. This inventory also gathered information about taxation and sources of revenue, road laws and total expenditures in every county of every State.
Since that first national inventory, the types of data used to manage our highway programs have been refined to reflect the changing needs and expectations of our transportation system. During the same time, the process for collecting and analyzing the data has become systematized to ensure regular updating of information. The publication of FHWA's A Guide to Reporting Highway Statistics was a significant milestone in unifying the data-reporting process. The Guide consolidated 16 reporting forms and provided instructions for reporting highway-related data on motor-fuel consumption, motor-vehicle registrations, driver licensing, and sources and funding of State and local government highway programs. The Guide promotes a unified reporting concept with an understanding of the interrelationships among various reporting areas.
This pamphlet provides an overview of the process for assembling statistical information from the files of State agencies on motor-vehicle registration and fees, motor-fuel use and taxation, driver licensing, highway taxation and finance, and other related subjects . This pamphlet also describes the reporting of these data to the FHWA in response to the Guide and some of the important uses of that data.
