I’ve written about declining vehicle miles travelled (VMT) before over at my blog, but this recent post at Communitybuilders.net caught my eye because it disaggregated the data (looking a four states as case studies) between commercial and personal traffic.  These data make it seem that commercial trucking (think about frac sand mining or Amazon.com) is the only reason why VMT is staying as high as it is today…

 

If this trend is true across the country, what kinds of policy implications might it have for transportation planning?

An increasing focus on trucking routes, and even less concern about arterials and residential average daily traffic (ADT) counts?

Or, as the blog post authors suggest, “VMT or mileage taxes, which can be set at different levels for different vehicle types, could easily be adapted to address 21^st century realities.”