Heavy Electrical Equipment · Federal Highway Administration (FHWA)

FHWA Highway Statistics Series (1945-present)

Datadory delivers fhwa highway statistics series 1945 present data covering eight decades of American road facts - public road mileage, lane-miles, vehicle miles of travel, driver counts, vehicle registrations, motor-fuel taxation, highway finance and bridge condition - roughly 153 coded tables per edition across all 50 states, DC and Puerto Rico, delivered API, files, or into your warehouse.

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Where it covers
All 50 U.S. states plus DC and Puerto Rico, with national summary rows; selected tables break down by county, urbanized area, functional system or ownership class
How far back
Annual editions from 1945 to the present; within-edition trend tables reach further back - road mileage to 1920, taxed motor fuel to 1950, federal-aid VMT and the Highway Trust Fund to 1957, roadway fatalities to 1900
How fine
State-level annual tables, some disaggregated to county, functional system, urbanized area, ownership class or driver age band

What is the FHWA Highway Statistics Series?

Highway Statistics is the Federal Highway Administration's flagship annual statistical publication, compiled from state submissions to FHWA's Office of Highway Policy Information and issued every year since 1945. A recent edition carries roughly 153 tables organized into 16 sections, each worksheet stamped with its official code - HM for highway mileage, VM for vehicle miles of travel, DL for driver counts by age and sex, MF for motor fuel, FI for finance, MV for motor vehicles and SF for special fuel.

The sixteen sections read as a complete anatomy of a national road network: bridges and tunnels (National Bridge Inventory condition by county, owner, posting status and year built, plus tunnel inventory); highway infrastructure (public road mileage and lane-miles by ownership, functional system, NHS designation and urbanized area); highway travel; travelers (drivers by sex and age band); vehicles (registrations including buses and publicly owned fleets); motor fuel (tax rates and taxed volumes); revenue (Highway Trust Fund status from 1957, toll receipts); debt obligations; apportionments, obligations and expenditures; conditions and safety; and performance indicators.

Two details make the series unusually valuable. Within-edition trend tables push the record far past the edition year - road mileage to 1920, taxed motor fuel to 1950, federal-aid VMT and the Trust Fund to 1957, fatalities to 1900. And the appendices preserve roughly 39 discontinued tables, so measures that stopped publishing remain retrievable. Datadory packages all of it as typed rows under heavy electrical equipment data, where road infrastructure sits beside the equipment and materials markets that serve it.

What do sample rows look like?

Each table arrives as a flat, code-labeled block - state rows down the side, functional-system columns across the top, a units header stating the measurement basis:

# one block per table family - table codes as published, Highway Statistics 2023

table_code       : TABLE HM-48
section          : Highway Infrastructure
measure          : Centerline miles on the National Highway System and
                   other highways
rows             : Alabama | Arizona | Arkansas | California ... (all states)
column_groups    : Rural Interstate | Rural Other NHS | Rural Total
                   Federal-Aid | Urban Interstate | Urban Other NHS |
                   Non-Federal-Aid Highways

table_code       : TABLE VM-2
section          : Highway Travel
units_header     : (MILLIONS)
measure          : Annual vehicle-miles by functional system, rural vs urban
column_groups    : Rural Interstate | Rural Other Principal Arterial |
                   Rural Minor Arterial | Rural Major Collector |
                   Rural Local | Urban Interstate |
                   Urban Other Freeways and Expressways | Total

table_code       : TABLE DL-20
section          : Travelers
age_bands        : UNDER 16 | (19 AND UNDER) | (20-24) | 25-29 | 30-34 |
                   40-44 | 50-54 | 60-64 | 70-74 | 75-79
measures         : MALE DRIVERS | FEMALE DRIVERS | TOTAL DRIVERS
sub_columns      : NUMBER | PERCENT OF TOTAL | PERCENT OF DRIVERS

table_code       : TABLE HM-16
section          : Highway Infrastructure
measure          : Public road length by ownership
categories       : State Highway Agency | County | Other Jurisdictions |
                   Federal Agency | Total Rural | Total Urbanized Area |
                   Total Rural and Urban

The structures above were captured during the August 2026 research pass from the 2023 edition. Note what the layout gives you without parsing effort: every block self-describes with its TABLE code and units header, so downstream joins never depend on file naming conventions.

What fields does the dataset include?

Seven structural fields define the series' tabular grammar: a state row identifier, rural/urban column groups split by functional class, the official TABLE code, a units header row, driver age bands, driver counts split by sex, and road ownership categories. The field dictionary documents each with an observed example - TABLE VM-2 with its (MILLIONS) vehicle-mile basis, 30-34 as a DL-20 age band, County as an HM-16 ownership class.

Because the codes are stable across editions, a row delivered from the 1990 edition parses identically to one delivered from 2023. That stability is the difference between an archive and a dataset, and it is why the dictionary was verified against the workbooks themselves rather than inferred from headers.

How far back does the coverage go?

Annual editions run from 1945 to the present, making this one of the longest continuous statistical series in US infrastructure. The depth compounds inside each edition: trend tables extend road mileage back to 1920, taxed motor fuel to 1950, federal-aid VMT and Highway Trust Fund status to 1957, and roadway fatalities to 1900 - before the interstate program existed, before most state highway departments took their modern form.

Geography holds steady across that span: all 50 states plus DC and Puerto Rico, with national summary rows, and selected tables breaking below the state to county, urbanized area, functional system, ownership class or driver age band. Six tables (HM-12, HM-51, MV-9, MV-11, MV-2, HM-66) are marked temporarily suspended in recent editions; the roughly 39 permanently discontinued tables survive in the appendices, and both facts are flagged in delivered metadata so a long-run panel never silently loses a series.

What can you build with it?

Four analytical families dominate. Demand modeling: lane-mile and mileage trends by ownership feed road-construction market sizing, complementing the ASCE infrastructure report card view of the same asset base. Funding analysis: Trust Fund balances from 1957, state revenues, tolls and debt support fiscal benchmarking across all 50 states. Electrification research: taxed-gallon volumes since 1950 give the fuel-tax base its honest baseline. Network planning: functional-system VMT since 1957 locates freight capacity on rural Interstates versus urban freeways.

The series also joins outward cleanly. The Highway Performance Monitoring System supplies route-level inventory beneath these state aggregates; the National Bridge Inventory details the structures summarized here; and FHWA's freight performance program adds truck-flow speed and reliability measures.

How is the data delivered?

Through Datadory, as typed records rather than per-edition files to reconcile. API, files, or your warehouse. Daily, weekly, or hourly. You choose the table families - mileage, VMT, drivers, fuel, finance - and the geographic and temporal scope; the first delivery lands as documented columns with the field dictionary above, and scheduled deliveries keep new editions arriving without anyone re-learning the layout. Cadence changes never change schema.

Field dictionary

Every field below is documented against real records. The full dictionary ships with the sample.

Field dictionary - seven documented fields defining the series' tabular grammar
fieldtypedefinitionexample
StatestringRow identifier in most state-level tables: one of the 50 states, DC or Puerto Rico. Observed in HM-48, VM-2 and DL-20 workbooks.Alabama
Rural / Urban columns (functional system breakdown)numberColumn groups splitting each measure between rural and urban systems, then by functional class - e.g. HM-48 shows Interstate, Other NHS and totals under both Rural and Urban headings for federal-aid and non-federal-aid highways. Observed in the HM-48 and VM-2 workbooks.Rural Interstate centerline miles
TABLE {code}stringEach worksheet is labelled with its official table code (HM = highway mileage, VM = vehicle miles of travel, DL = driver licensing, MF = motor fuel, FI = finance, MV = motor vehicles, SF = special fuel). Observed as sheet titles such as 'TABLE HM-48' and 'TABLE DL-20'.TABLE VM-2
Units header rowstringA header line stating the measurement basis of the table, e.g. '(MILLIONS)' of vehicle-miles or '(THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS)' for finance tables. Observed in VM-2 and MF-3.(THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS)
AGE (DL-20)enumDriver age bands used in the DL-20 workbook: UNDER 16, 19 AND UNDER, 20-24, 25-29 through 75-79, plus an open upper band.30-34
MALE/FEMALE/TOTAL DRIVERS (DL-20)numberDriver counts split by sex, each carrying NUMBER, PERCENT OF TOTAL and PERCENT OF DRIVERS sub-columns. Observed in the DL-20 workbook.TOTAL DRIVERS, NUMBER
OWNERSHIP (HM-16)enumOwnership categories for public road mileage: State Highway Agency, County, Other Jurisdictions, Federal Agency, Town/Township/Municipal. Observed in the HM-16 workbook.County

Coverage at a glance

chipvalue
GeographyAll 50 U.S. states + DC + Puerto Rico, with national summary rows; selected tables break to county, urbanized area, functional system or ownership
TemporalAnnual editions 1945-present; trend tables inside each edition reach 1920 (mileage), 1950 (taxed fuel), 1957 (Trust Fund, federal-aid VMT) and 1900 (fatalities)
GranularityState-level annual tables, some disaggregated by county, functional system, urbanized area, ownership or driver age group

What teams do with it

  • Road-construction demand modeling Public road mileage and lane-miles by ownership and functional system, tracked edition over edition, size the paving, marking and maintenance market before contract awards confirm it.
  • Fuel-tax base and electrification tracking Motor-fuel tables carry state and federal tax rates alongside taxed-gallon volumes reaching back to 1950 and 1961 - the longest honest baseline for measuring what electrification does to a per-gallon funding model.
  • Freight and logistics network planning Vehicle-miles of travel split by rural and urban functional system, reported since 1957 on federal-aid highways and since 1980 by full functional class, show where truck capacity actually runs.
  • State transportation finance benchmarking Highway Trust Fund status from 1957, state and local highway revenues, toll receipts and debt obligations give analysts a like-for-like fiscal comparison across all 50 states.
  • Fleet and aftermarket sizing Motor-vehicle registration tables including buses and publicly owned fleets anchor vehicle-park models; the dedicated registration cut pairs with this series for depth.
  • Long-run safety and pavement research Fatalities recorded from 1900 plus pavement roughness, rutting, faulting and cracking metrics support longitudinal research few other sources can span.

Questions buyers ask

What is included in the FHWA Highway Statistics Series data?

Roughly 153 tables per edition across 16 sections: public road mileage and lane-miles, vehicle miles of travel, drivers by age and sex, motor-vehicle registrations, motor-fuel tax rates and taxed volumes, Highway Trust Fund status, state highway revenues, tolls, debt, apportionments, bridge condition and fatalities. All 50 states, DC and Puerto Rico are covered, with annual editions running from 1945 onward.

What does one record represent?

One observation made explicit: a state (or finer geography) measured in a named table, in a named edition, with the table's unit basis attached. Because every table carries its official code - HM, VM, DL, MF, FI, MV or SF - and a units header row, a delivered value never floats unanchored from its definition.

How far back does the data go?

Editions start in 1945, and internal trend tables stretch further: road mileage to 1920, taxed motor fuel to 1950, federal-aid VMT and Trust Fund status to 1957, roadway fatalities to 1900. Roughly 39 discontinued tables are preserved in the series appendices, keeping long-run panels unbroken where other sources would drop the series entirely.

Which states and geographies are covered?

All 50 U.S. states plus the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico, with national summary rows. Selected tables break down below the state line - by county for bridge condition, by urbanized area and functional system for mileage and VMT, by ownership class, and by age band for driver counts.

Can the data be joined against other datasets?

Yes. Stable state keys and table codes join onto the Highway Performance Monitoring System for route-level detail, the National Bridge Inventory for structure-level condition, FHWA's freight performance program for truck flows, and the vehicle-registration cut of Highway Statistics for fleet depth - each covered on its own Datadory record.

Have any tables been discontinued?

About 39 tables have been retired over the decades but remain preserved in the series appendices, and six tables (HM-12, HM-51, MV-9, MV-11, MV-2, HM-66) are marked temporarily suspended in recent editions. Delivered metadata flags suspension and discontinuation so automated pipelines notice a missing series instead of silently imputing zeros.

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