Skip to main content

Has motorisation in the US peaked?

A new study by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute analysed recent changes in the United States in both the ownership of light-duty vehicles (cars, pickup trucks, SUVs and vans) and the corresponding distance driven. The study looked at the rates per person and per household over the period 1984 to 2015. The main findings were: The vehicle-ownership rates per person and per household both reached their maxima in 2006. The two rates for 2015 are down, on average, 4.4 per cent f
February 15, 2017 Read time: 1 min
A new study by the 5647 University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute analysed recent changes in the United States in both the ownership of light-duty vehicles (cars, pickup trucks, SUVs and vans) and the corresponding distance driven. The study looked at the rates per person and per household over the period 1984 to 2015.

The main findings were:

The vehicle-ownership rates per person and per household both reached their maxima in 2006. The two rates for 2015 are down, on average, 4.4 per cent from their maxima, although they have rebounded, on average, 1.4 per cent from the post-maximum minima reached in 2012 and 2013.

The distance-driven rates per person and per household both reached their maxima in 2004.

The two rates for 2015 are down, on average, 7.8 per cent from their maxima, although they have rebounded, on average, 2.1 per cent from the post-maximum minima reached in 2013.

Related Content

  • May 20, 2016
    UK ‘headed for gridlock’ as new record car use revealed
    UK Road safety charity Brake is concerned by worrying new figures showing car traffic reached a new peak in 2015, with overall traffic increasing by almost 19 per cent since 1995. According to UK government statistics, the number of vehicle miles travelled grew by 1.1 per cent in 2015, to 247.7 billion, slightly higher than the previous peak in 2007. Van traffic has continued to grow more quickly than any other vehicle type, rising 4.2 per cent from 2014 levels. Lorry traffic saw the largest year-on-year
  • May 16, 2018
    ACE report: private sector and user-pay for English roads
    It’s one minute to midnight for funding England’s roads, according to a timely new report - and the clock’s big hand is pointing to some form of user-pay solution, reports David Arminas. Is there any way out of future user-pay funding for England’s highway infrastructure? The answer is a resounding ‘no’, according to the recently-published report Funding Roads for the Future. The 25-page document by the London-based Association for Consultancy and Engineering (ACE) calls for a radical rethink about how to
  • July 26, 2012
    Personal Rapid Transit, clear benefits for European cities
    David Crawford watches the race to get the world's first PRT system up and running. To paraphrase the old joke about buses bunching, you seem to have to wait several decades for a Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) system, and then half a dozen come along together. Currently, in fact, there are well over that number of schemes for driverless electric passenger-carrying 'pod' networks at various stages of planning, design and implementation around the world. Locations range from a straight-off-the-drawing board ne
  • October 28, 2016
    New solutions for catching texting drivers
    Many countries have laws prohibiting texting while driving but enforcement is proving difficult – David Crawford looks at some new approaches being tried by authorities. Finding definitive solutions – technological, regulatory and educational - to the potentially lethal practice of people driving while using mobile phones is proving elusive, while the stakes grow higher.