Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Vehicle Miles Driven And the Economic Contraction

The Depart of Transportation's Federal Highway Commission has released the latest report on Traffic Volume Trends, data through February. Travel on all roads and streets changed by 1.8% (3.9 billion vehicle miles) for February 2012 as compared with February 2011. The 12-month moving average increased by 0.14%. This is the third month of increase after nine consecutive months of decline (PDF report).
Here is a chart that illustrates this data series from its inception in 1970. I'm plotting the "Moving 12-Month Total on ALL Roads," as the DOT terms it. See Figure 1 in the PDF report, which charts the data from 1987. My start date is 1971 because I'm incorporating all the available data from the DOT spreadsheets.



The rolling 12-month miles driven contracted from its all-time high for 39 months during the stagflation of the late 1970s to early 1980s, a double-dip recession era. The most recent dip has lasted for 50 months and counting — a new record, but the trough to date was in November 2011.  (more)

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