FHWA maintains datasets covering public road inventory, traffic flows, pavement condition, and performance information. The data offers the only national authoritative information on all public roads.

Spotlight Project: Nonfederal Applications of the HPMS

FHWA previously modified the HPMS Analytical Process (AP) models so that they could be used by State transportation agencies to assess the conditions and performance of their own highway systems. States, as well as MPOs, have used the HPMS AP to address a wide variety of concerns about their highway systems. Areas of use include developing highway adequacy ratings, assessing the relationship between highway investment and performance, supporting strategic and systems planning, and tracking vehicle miles of travel.

Image source: FHWA.

FHWA's NPD dataset covers both the National Performance Management Research Dataset (NPMRDS) and the Performance Vehicle Occupancy data on an annual basis. The NPD delivers travel time data for all National Highway System highways and vehicle (e.g., truck, bus, and privately-operated vehicles) occupancy data for all States and urban areas, enabling transportation performance management for accountability and transparency. The annual NPD program enables trending analysis, detects new issues, increases data quality, and lowers data gathering cost and data reporting burden.

Spotlight Project: National Performance Dataset

The NPD data uses modern data sources such as mobile phones and Global Positioning System (GPS) equipment and was acquired through partnership with private businesses and academic research institutes. These data are being used by all State DOTs across the country and MPOs for effective transportation performance management.

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FHWA 500 Series Data consist of data related to: fuel consumption (gasoline and special fuel), licensed drivers, registered vehicles, and highway financing, including local, State and Federal spending, revenue, tolls, and bonds.

The 500 Series Data are the only national data in existence that provide vital data and information on a host of issues regarding demand on highways, revenue, and highway spending at all levels of Government.

To increase the effectiveness of the program and minimize data reporting burden to State and local agencies, the R&D has been focusing on developing a robust online data collection system referred to as the Policy Information Data Portal (PIDP).

Spotlight Project: A Guide to Reporting Highway Statistics

A Guide to Reporting Highway Statistics was first issued in 1979 to organize into one volume the instructions for various forms and other related data needs that had been issued over a period of several years. The guide aims to serve as a reference to the reporting system that FHWA desires States to use in reporting State and local highway statistical data. The guide also aims to foster a working understanding of the unified concept behind the national reporting system for highway statistics and of the interrelationships among different reporting areas.

Image source: FHWA.

ITIP serves as a data warehouse for FHWA and offers a mechanism for integrated data analysis throughout FHWA. Specifically, the application supports some of the Agency’s Federal-aid system condition and performance monitoring initiatives and various transportation performance management (TPM) implementation objectives. The DVC enables effective communication about data and information with all interested parties, including the public.

Spotlight Project: Roadway Information Database (RID) Visualizations

The RID is a geodatabase that contains detailed information about the roadway characteristics in and around Naturalistic Driving Study (NDS) study cities. New roadway data were consistently collected across the NDS sites. The DVC converted the collected data to a visual format, using bubble charts to communicate the range of RID data available for different roadway characteristics.

Image source: FHWA.

The NHTS provides the only national-level travel behavior data linked to social, demographic, and other dimensions. The survey results answer questions related to who, how, and when people travel, along with a host of other contemporary travel issues. The NexGen NHTS also offers origin/destination data covering all metropolitan areas through improved data-collection methods, without utilizing traditionally time consuming and expensive survey approaches.

NHTS enables future demand analysis and a wide range of projects, programs, policy analysis, and evaluations. The R&D effort on the NHTS has been focused on data methods, especially big data, big data analytics, and passive data (e.g., GPS), cellular, apps, and other nonroadway-based sensor information).

Spotlight Project: NHTS Compendium of Uses

The NHTS Compendium of Uses contains various applications of NHTS data employed in transportation planning and research. NHTS data are used across a wide variety of topic areas, including transportation, health, safety, environment, and engineering. In 2019, NHTS data was used in articles published in the American Journal of Public Health, International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, and National Center for Transit Research.

Image source: nhts.ornl.gov.

The Traffic Monitoring program performs advanced research on traffic data collection and processing methods and technologies to improve efficiency; collect and disseminate consistent traffic volume, class, and weight data for motorized and nonmotorized vehicles; and provide technical guidance for the transportation community.

The focus of the R&D effort dealing with monitoring traffic is on utilizing big data and new data analytics to estimate traffic flow conditions without the need to expand roadway-based monitoring systems.

In addition, the R&D effort is also attempting to enable live or near live traffic flow monitoring and data processing.

Spotlight Project: Traffic Monitoring Guide (TMG)

The TMG presents recommendations to help improve and advance current programs with a view toward the future of traffic monitoring and recent transportation legislation resulting from the Fixing America's Surface Transportation (FAST) Act. Traffic data and information are needed to assess current and past performance and to predict future performance. Improved traffic data are needed for reporting in the HPMS and there are now opportunities to utilize traffic data from intelligent transportation systems (ITS) to support coordination of planning and operations functions at the Federal and State levels.

Image source: FHWA.