Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT)

Daily vehicle miles traveled (VMT) is a distance- and volume-based measure of driving on roadways for all motorized vehicle types—car, bus, motorcycle, and truck—on an average day. Per capita VMT is the same measure divided by the same area's population for the same year. Per vehicle VMT divides VMT by the number of household vehicles available by residents of that geography in the same year. These three value types can be selected in the dropdown in the first chart below. Use the legend items to explore various geographies. The second chart below shows per capita and total personal vehicles available to the region’s households from the American Community Survey.

Normalizing VMT by a county or region's population, or household vehicles, is helpful for context, but does not have complete parity with what is measured in VMT estimates. People and vehicles come into the region from other places, just as people and vehicles leave the region to visit other places. VMT per capita compares all miles traveled on the region's roads to the region's population (for all ages) from the U.S. Census Bureau's latest population estimates. Vehicle counts for VMT are classified by vehicle types, but not by vehicle ownership. In 2017, statewide estimates for VMT by motorcycles, passenger cars, and two-axle single-unit trucks with four wheels made up 88% of Pennsylvania's VMT, and 95% of New Jersey's. These vehicle types are highly likely to be personal vehicles, owned by households, but a small percent could be fleet vehicles of companies or governments. The remaining VMT is made up of vehicle types like school and commercial buses and trucks with more than two axles so they are highly likely to be commercial vehicles.

This dataset updates:  Annually

Field Value
Posting Frequency Annually
Methodology

https://github.com/dvrpc/Tracking-Progress-Data-Updates

Source New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT); Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT); United States Census Bureau
Source URL
Category
  • Economy
  • Environment
  • Freight & Aviation
  • Roadways
Data Steward Contact Ian Schwarzenberg
Data Steward Contact Email Ian Schwarzenberg
Dataset ID b3fc7ed6-7434-4e6b-a79f-314802266304
License DVRPC Data License