The erstwhile Scott Shaffer breaks down four ways of looking at vehicle miles travelled (VMT) data on his Tumblr — total, per capita, per vehicle, and per driver. Compare the results: For some reason he starts talking about Monica and Russ: VMT per capita in Minnesota has been steady or dropping since about 2004. […]
Via Planetizen, here’s an informative chart about an oft-discussed topic here on streets.mn: annual vehicle miles travelled. The nice thing here is that it attempts to correlate VMT with other economic and demographic data: Planetizen’s Steve Polzin has a few prescient takeaways: Fuel prices and a soft economy were important contributors to slowing […]
This is a great chart from the New York Times that puts a dizzying spin on the usual vehicle miles traveled (VMT) and fatality graphs by plotting them against each other. Auto fatalities per capita is on the Y-axis, and VMT per capita is on the X (moving to the right = larger): (Note: 1979 = […]
Today’s chart of the day shows total fatality rates per vehicle mile (not passenger trip or mile as I detailed here) for urban transit buses and passenger vehicles. It uses fatality data from the 2011 National Transit Database and NHTSA Safety reports. The main difference here is that it compares passenger vehicle travel done only […]
Time once again for another update on the big picture of driving in the United States: Vehicle Miles Travelled, per person. Long-time wonks who have been following this key stat might remember that it “peaked” fifteen years ago, and VMT (overall and per capita) had plateaued and was declining… … until gas prices went […]
Via City Observatory, here’s a chart that shows a great proxy for the annual VMT (or vehicle miles travelled). It’s pretty self-explanatory. For many years, almost since the year 2000, VMT (the total amount of driving in the country) was at a plateau. With low gas prices and a booming economy, that’s changed. The […]
Here’s a chart that compares how much people drive to how wealthy they become, across a bunch of countries including Japan, Australia, and some of Europe’s larger nations. As you can see, the US is a bit higher than the rest: The chart comes from a study that compares rates of driving and preferences in […]
Here’s a chart showing an uptick in driving due to low prices, from this blog about sustainability… It just shows that price signals do make a big difference, even if total VMT has been below its peak for a decade. Chart showing an increase in total driving in the US
If you saw yesterday’s chart that disaggregated the falling vehicle miles travelled (VMT) according to type of vehicle, here’s another compelling chart that shows potential future VMT trends, from the National Cooperative Highway Research Program. (Note: very official!) The report (which is very wonky, by the way) has a range of scenarios from “tech triumph” all the […]
Via Pedal Fort Collins, here’s a simple chart showing the basic relationship between vehicle weight and the amount of “damage” or wear that is caused to the roadway. The relationship is pretty straightforward, but thanks to the magic of gasoline, people often forget to think about the weight disparities on our roads. Thus the chart, […]