The number of vehicle-miles traveled on all roads in the United States decreased by some 1.55 percent to approximately 3.17 trillion in 2022. Records for 2019 reported the highest annual level on record, at just under 3.3 trillion vehicle-miles traveled.

The graph displays the average miles driven per person in the United States from 1980 to 2022. The x-axis represents the years, while the y-axis shows the average miles driven annually by one person. The data shows that the lowest average was 10,511 miles in 1980, and the highest was 14,906 miles in 2004. A notable drop occurred in 2020, with the average falling to 12,724 miles, likely reflecting reduced travel during the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, the data highlights a long-term increase in driving over the decades, with fluctuations in recent years.

This statistic shows the average number of miles driven per day in the United States per driver between 2001 and 2017. On average, American drivers today are moving their vehicles considerably less than they were sixteen years ago, but they still totaled an average of 25.9 miles per day and per driver in 2017. The average driver also made more trips in 2001 than in 2017, when 2.7 daily vehicle trips per driver with an average length of 9.6 miles per trip were recorded. In 2001, the average driver made 3.4 trips with an average of 9.9 miles.

Graph and download economic data for Moving 12-Month Total Vehicle Miles Traveled (M12MTVUSM227SFWA) from Dec 2000 to Apr 2025 about miles, 1-year, travel, vehicles, and USA.

The graph displays the total miles of travel in the U.S. from 1980 to 2022. The x-axis represents the years, while the y-axis shows the total miles traveled. The data reveals that the highest number of miles driven occurred in 2019, with over 3.26 trillion miles traveled, while 2020 saw a significant drop to approximately 2.9 trillion miles due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Overall, miles driven steadily increased from 1980 to 2019, with some fluctuations in later years, reflecting shifts in driving habits, economic factors, and public health events.

The average annual mileage of light vehicles in use in the United States dropped to just under ****** kilometers in 2020, down from some ****** kilometers one year earlier. This ***** percent dip in the annual average comes after six years of steady increase.

**This data set was last updated 3:30 PM ET Monday, January 4, 2021. The last date of data in this dataset is December 31, 2020. **

Overview

Data shows that mobility declined nationally since states and localities began shelter-in-place strategies to stem the spread of COVID-19. The numbers began climbing as more people ventured out and traveled further from their homes, but in parallel with the rise of COVID-19 cases in July, travel declined again.

This distribution contains county level data for vehicle miles traveled (VMT) from StreetLight Data, Inc, updated three times a week. This data offers a detailed look at estimates of how much people are moving around in each county.

Data available has a two day lag - the most recent data is from two days prior to the update date. Going forward, this dataset will be updated by AP at 3:30pm ET on Monday, Wednesday and Friday each week.

This data has been made available to members of AP’s Data Distribution Program. To inquire about access for your organization - publishers, researchers, corporations, etc. - please click Request Access in the upper right corner of the page or email kromano@ap.org. Be sure to include your contact information and use case.

Findings

• Nationally, data shows that vehicle travel in the US has doubled compared to the seven-day period ending April 13, which was the lowest VMT since the COVID-19 crisis began. In early December, travel reached a low not seen since May, with a small rise leading up to the Christmas holiday.
• Average vehicle miles traveled continues to be below what would be expected without a pandemic - down 38% compared to January 2020. September 4 reported the largest single day estimate of vehicle miles traveled since March 14.
• New Jersey, Michigan and New York are among the states with the largest relative uptick in travel at this point of the pandemic - they report almost two times the miles traveled compared to their lowest seven-day period. However, travel in New Jersey and New York is still much lower than expected without a pandemic. Other states such as New Mexico, Vermont and West Virginia have rebounded the least. ## About This Data The county level data is provided by StreetLight Data, Inc, a transportation analysis firm that measures travel patterns across the U.S.. The data is from their Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) Monitor which uses anonymized and aggregated data from smartphones and other GPS-enabled devices to provide county-by-county VMT metrics for more than 3,100 counties. The VMT Monitor provides an estimate of total vehicle miles travelled by residents of each county, each day since the COVID-19 crisis began (March 1, 2020), as well as a change from the baseline average daily VMT calculated for January 2020. Additional columns are calculations by AP.

Included Data

01_vmt_nation.csv - Data summarized to provide a nationwide look at vehicle miles traveled. Includes single day VMT across counties, daily percent change compared to January and seven day rolling averages to smooth out the trend lines over time.

02_vmt_state.csv - Data summarized to provide a statewide look at vehicle miles traveled. Includes single day VMT across counties, daily percent change compared to January and seven day rolling averages to smooth out the trend lines over time.

03_vmt_county.csv - Data providing a county level look at vehicle miles traveled. Includes VMT estimate, percent change compared to January and seven day rolling averages to smooth out the trend lines over time.

Additional Data Queries

* Filter for specific state - filters 02_vmt_state.csv daily data for specific state.

* Filter counties by state - filters 03_vmt_county.csv daily data for counties in specific state.

* Filter for specific county - filters 03_vmt_county.csv daily data for specific county.

Interactive

The AP has designed an interactive map to show percent change in vehicle miles traveled by county since each counties lowest point during the pandemic:

@(https://interactives.ap.org/vmt-map/)

Interactive Embed Code

Using the Data

This data can help put your county's mobility in context with your state and over time. The data set contains different measures of change - daily comparisons and seven day rolling averages. The rolling average allows for a smoother trend line for comparison across counties and states. To get the full picture, there are also two available baselines - vehicle miles traveled in January 2020 (pre-pandemic) and vehicle miles traveled at each geography's low point during the pandemic.

Caveats

• The data from StreetLight Data, Inc does not include data for some low-population counties with low VMT (<5,000 miles/day in their baseline month of January 2020). In our analyses, we only include the 2,779 counties that have daily data for the entire period (March 1, 2020 to current).
• In some cases, a lack of decline in mobility from March to April can indicate that movement in the county is essential to keeping the larger economy going or that residents need to drive further to reach essentials businesses like grocery stores compared to other counties.
• The VMT includes both passenger and commercial miles, so truck traffic is included. However, the proxy is based on the "total number of trip starts and ends for all devices whose most frequent location is in this county". It does not count the VMT of trucks cutting through a county.
• For those instances where travel begins in one county and ends in another, the county where the miles are recorded is always the vehicle’s home county. ###### Contact reporter Angeliki Kastanis at akastanis@ap.org.

Graph and download economic data for Vehicle Miles Traveled (TRFVOLUSM227NFWA) from Jan 1970 to Apr 2025 about miles, travel, vehicles, and USA.

This table contains data on the annual miles traveled by place of occurrence and by mode of transportation (vehicle, pedestrian, bicycle), for California, its regions, counties, and cities/towns. The ratio uses data from the California Department of Transportation, the U.S. Department of Transportation, and the U.S. Census Bureau. The table is part of a series of indicators in the Healthy Communities Data and Indicators Project of the Office of Health Equity. Miles traveled by individuals and their choice of mode – car, truck, public transit, walking or bicycling – have a major impact on mobility and population health. Miles traveled by automobile offers extraordinary personal mobility and independence, but it is also associated with air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming, road traffic injuries, and sedentary lifestyles. Active modes of transport – bicycling and walking alone and in combination with public transit – offer opportunities for physical activity, which has many documented health benefits. More information about the data table and a data dictionary can be found in the About/Attachments section.

The data is based upon traffic volume trends data collected by the United States Department of Transportation data from January 1971 to February 2013.Since June 2005, vehicle miles driven have fallen 8.75 percent. This decline has remained steady for the past 92 months. There are several reasons that may be causing this steady downward trend. It has been suggested that due to rising gas prices, the Great Recession, an aging population led by the Baby Boom generation which is comprised of Americans over the age of 55 who tend to drive less, and quite possibly younger Americans choosing to drive less. Between 2001 and 2009, the average yearly number of miles driven by 16- to 34-year-olds has dropped 23 percent.Researchers indicate that this trend may be linked to five principal factors:The cost of Driving has increasedThe recent recessionIt is harder to get a license in many statesMore younger people are choosing to live in transit-oriented areas andTechnology is making it easier to go car-freeData Source Information: Traffic Volume Trends is a monthly report based on hourly traffic count data reported by the States. These data are collected at approximately 4,000 continuous traffic counting locations nationwide and are used to estimate the percent change in traffic for the current month compared with the same month in the previous year. Estimates are re-adjusted annually to match the vehicle miles of travel from the Highway Performance Monitoring System and are continually updated with additional data.

The average motorist in the United Kingdom drove up to 10,000 miles per year. In 2018, 35 percent of respondents stated that they drove between one to 5,000 miles annually, which was an increase compared to the year before. Mileage for private travel was highest when compared to other purposes, according to a governmental survey among British car drivers. In 2017, an average of roughly 4,500 miles were driven for private reasons.

Company cars have highest mileage

The above mentioned governmental survey also found that those driving company cars tended to travel more than private car users. This was mainly due to the extra distances travelled for business and commuting.

Most UK residents use a car every day

A 2018 Statista survey found that more than half of the UK residential population used a car every day. Only one percent of respondents reported using a car less often than several times a year, with not one never using such passenger vehicles.

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.

Annual Vehicle Miles of Travel (AVMT) represents the estimated number of miles driven on Maryland's public highways for a given year. There are two components used to estimate AVMT - traffic count data and highway mileage. Traffic count data is summarized and reported as Annual Average Daily Traffic (AADT). AADTs are calculated from short-term (48-hour) traffic counts performed on all publicly maintained roads in Maryland (including county and municipal). These counts are factored to account for seasonal variation in traffic patterns and represent an “Average Day”. For planning purposes, AADT's are assigned to highway segments in order to provide a picture of traffic patterns is on the highway system on an average day. Highway mileage statistics are complied annually based on mileage reports from the local jurisdictions and SHA and MDTA offices. Any mileage changes are field verified by SHA's data collections crews. AVMT is calculated by multiplying the AADT on a road segment by the segment length. Because AADT represents Daily traffic, the result is multiplied by 365 to represent Annual Vehicle Miles of Travel. (AVMT = AADT X SECTION LENGTH X365)

VITAL SIGNS INDICATOR Daily Miles Traveled (T15)

FULL MEASURE NAME Per-capita vehicle miles traveled

LAST UPDATED July 2017

DESCRIPTION Daily miles traveled, commonly referred to as vehicle miles traveled (VMT), reflects the total and per-person number of miles traveled in personal vehicles on a typical weekday. The dataset includes metropolitan area, regional and county tables for per-capita vehicle miles traveled.

DATA SOURCE California Department of Transportation: California Public Road Data/Highway Performance Monitoring System 2001-2015 http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/tsip/hpms/datalibrary.php

California Department of Finance: Population and Housing Estimates Forms E-8 and E-5 2001-2015 http://www.dof.ca.gov/research/demographic/reports/estimates/e-8/ http://www.dof.ca.gov/research/demographic/reports/estimates/e-5/2011-20/view.php

U.S. Census Bureau: Summary File 1 2010 http://factfinder2.census.gov

CONTACT INFORMATION vitalsigns.info@mtc.ca.gov

METHODOLOGY NOTES (across all datasets for this indicator) Vehicle miles traveled reflects the mileage accrued within the county and not necessarily the residents of that county; even though most trips are due to local residents, additional VMT can be accrued by through-trips. City data was thus discarded due to this limitation and the analysis only examine county and regional data, where through-trips are generally less common.

The metropolitan area comparison was performed by summing all of the urbanized areas within each metropolitan area (9-nine region for the San Francisco Bay Area and the primary MSA for all others). For the metro analysis, no VMT data is available outside of other urbanized areas; it is only available for intraregional analysis purposes.

VMT per capita is calculated by dividing VMT by an estimate of the traveling population. The traveling population does not include people living in institutionalized facilities, which are defined by the Census. Because institutionalized population is not estimated each year, the proportion of people living in institutionalized facilities from the 2010 Census was applied to the total population estimates for all years.

Graph and download economic data for Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) from Jan 2000 to Mar 2025 about miles, travel, vehicles, and USA.

Daily Miles Traveled (T14)

FULL MEASURE NAME
Total vehicle miles traveled

LAST UPDATED
August 2022

DESCRIPTION
Daily miles traveled, commonly referred to as vehicle miles traveled (VMT), reflects the total and per-person number of miles traveled in personal vehicles on a typical weekday. The dataset includes metropolitan area, regional and county tables for total vehicle miles traveled.

DATA SOURCE
California Department of Transportation: California Public Road Data/Highway Performance Monitoring System - http://www.dot.ca.gov/hq/tsip/hpms/datalibrary.php
2001-2020

Federal Highway Administration: Highway Statistics - https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/statistics/2020/hm71.cfm
2020

California Department of Finance: E-4 Historical Population Estimates for Cities, Counties, and the State - https://dof.ca.gov/forecasting/demographics/estimates/
2001-2020

US Census Population and Housing Unit Estimates - https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/popest.html
2020

CONTACT INFORMATION
vitalsigns.info@mtc.ca.gov

METHODOLOGY NOTES (across all datasets for this indicator)
Vehicle miles traveled (VMT) reflects the mileage accrued within the county and not necessarily the residents of that county; even though most trips are due to local residents, additional VMT can be accrued by through-trips. City data was thus discarded due to this limitation and the analysis only examines county and regional data, where through-trips are generally less common.

The metropolitan area comparison was performed by summing all of the urbanized areas for which the majority of its population falls within a given metropolitan area (9-county region for the San Francisco Bay Area and the primary metropolitan statistical area (MSA) for all others). For the metro analysis, no VMT data is available in rural areas; it is only available for intraregional analysis purposes. VMT per capita is calculated by dividing VMT by an estimate of the traveling population.

In 2023, Swedish diesel cars had travelled the most distance, at around **** billion Scandinavian miles (approximately ***** billion kilometers). However, when looking strictly at vehicle-miles travelled by individuals, petrol cars were driving across the largest distance. Though plug-in hybrid electric vehicles were the third in the ranking, petrol cars travelled over five times the distance travelled by PHEVs.

United States Ave Vehicle Miles Traveled per Household: 1 Licensed Driver data was reported at 8,800.000 Mile in 2009. This records a decrease from the previous number of 9,700.000 Mile for 2001. United States Ave Vehicle Miles Traveled per Household: 1 Licensed Driver data is updated yearly, averaging 9,700.000 Mile from Dec 1991 (Median) to 2009, with 3 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 15,200.000 Mile in 1991 and a record low of 8,800.000 Mile in 2009. United States Ave Vehicle Miles Traveled per Household: 1 Licensed Driver data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Center for Transportation Analysis. The data is categorized under Global Database’s USA – Table US.TA005: Vehicles Miles Traveled per Household.

China Transport: Average Distance: Passenger data was reported at 189.000 km in 2023. This records a decrease from the previous number of 231.261 km for 2022. China Transport: Average Distance: Passenger data is updated yearly, averaging 80.942 km from Dec 1950 (Median) to 2023, with 74 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 237.976 km in 2021 and a record low of 64.000 km in 1982. China Transport: Average Distance: Passenger data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Ministry of Transport. The data is categorized under China Premium Database’s Transportation and Storage Sector – Table CN.TA: Transport: Passenger and Freight Average Distance.