Phoenix – Data published today by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) show that American driving increased 2.4 trillion miles in the first nine months of 2016. If the pattern continues we will be over 3 trillion by the beginning of the Christmas driving season!

The numbers, published in FHWA’s latest “Traffic Volume Trends” report – an estimate of American roads traveled – show that more than 265.5 billion miles were driven in September 2016 alone which is approximately  a 3 percent increase over the previous September. The increase in driving highlights the growing demands facing the nation’s roads and reaffirms the importance of the “Fixing America’s Surface Transportation” (FAST) Act, which is investing $305 billion in America’s surface transportation infrastructure – including $226 billion for roads and bridges – until 2020.

The September report also includes seasonally-adjusted data, which is conducted by USDOT’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics as a way to even out seasonal variation in travel and enable vehicle miles traveled (VMT) comparisons with any other month in any year. The seasonally-adjusted vehicle miles traveled for September 2016 were 268.7 billion miles. Compared with seasonally adjusted August 2016 figures, September VMT increased by .4 percent. The estimates include passenger vehicle, bus and truck travel.

In September, American drivers increased total mileage among all five regions of the United States. At 5.5 percent, traffic in the West – a 13-state region stretching from California to Montana, and including Hawaii and Alaska – led the nation with the largest percentage increase in unadjusted VMT, and continued an uninterrupted series of monthly increases that began in October 2013.

At 27.8 billion VMT, California accounted for more miles driven in September 2016 than the combined 27.7 billion miles of 19 states – Alaska, Arkansas, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Dakota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, West Virginia, Wyoming – and Washington, D.C.

At 1.6 percent, the North Central – a 12-state area stretching from North Dakota to Ohio – had the smallest percentage increase in unadjusted VMT for the month.

At 5.7 percent, Idaho led the nation with the largest unadjusted single-state traffic percent increase compared to the same month a year earlier, followed by Utah at 5.5 percent and Nevada at 5.3 percent. For the seventh month in a row, at 2.2 percent, North Dakota led the nation with the largest unadjusted traffic decrease for the month.

To review the VMT data in FHWA’s “Traffic Volume Trends” reports, which are based on information collected from more than 5,000 continuous count stations nationwide, visit http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/travel_monitoring/tvt.cfm.