Americans drove more miles in September than in any other month ever

Updated Dec 10, 2015

highway-traffic-generic-2The Federal Highway Administration reports that total vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in the U.S. during September reached 259.9 billion miles, the most ever for one month.

The total for the year through September reached closed to 2.4 trillion miles, according to FHWA’s Traffic Volume Trends report. The month also marked 19 months in a row of monthly mileage increases and gained 4.3 percent compared to September 2014.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, which the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Bureau of Transportation Statistics uses to adjust for variables such as weather, September saw 264 billion VMT.

Total mileage increased in all five regions of the country tracked by the report. The top region, South Gulf, had an unadjusted 52 billion VMT, while the Northeast region had 38.7 billion unadjusted VMT.

Michigan was the top state in year-over-year VMT increases at 7.6 percent, followed by Arkansas (7.2 percent) and Hawaii (6.7 percent).

Data for the Traffic Volume Trends report is collected at 5,000 continuous count stations and measures passenger vehicle, bus and truck travel. The report is available here.