Analysis of National Travel Trends

Over the past few decades, the transportation landscape has undergone a significant transformation, driven by technological innovations, demographic shifts, and evolving socio-cultural norms. The proliferation of information and communication technologies has revolutionized how and where individuals undertake daily activities, increasingly substituting physical travel with virtual alternatives and reshaping work through telework. Changes in technology have also altered mode characteristics and performance and introduced new options such as micromobility, ride-hailing, autonomous vehicles, and robotic delivery. Concurrently, demographic changes have altered travel needs and preferences. The population is aging, years spent in educational systems are increasing, and labor force participation rates have been declining. Migration trends from urban centers to suburban and exurban areas, as well as between metro areas, raise critical questions about service levels and infrastructure needs. Increasing diversity in lifestyles, attitudes, and values has added complexity to travel choices and patterns of activity, mobility, and time use. This multi-stage project aims to shed light on trends in time, travel, transit, telework, and transportation spending over the past two decades and beyond. The effort will expand and extend ongoing analysis that the project team has conducted over many years, seeking to identify emerging trends such as behavior stabilization following the COVID-19 pandemic and the pace of influence from emerging travel options. Understanding these trends is crucial for addressing current and future challenges in transportation management, economic resilience, and societal well-being. The project will utilize data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), the Consumer Expenditure Survey (CES), the American Community Survey (ACS), and the new National Household Travel Survey (NHTS 2025), supplemented by national metrics on e-commerce, telework participation, roadway vehicle miles traveled, transit ridership, and airline travel. An advanced data fusion approach will integrate these diverse datasets through compilation, cleansing, merging, and aggregation, applying rigorous statistical tools to ensure accuracy and reliability.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Active
• Funding: $100,000.00
• Contract Numbers:

  69A3552344815

  69A3552348320

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Office of the Assistant Secretary for Research and Technology

  University Transportation Centers Program
  Department of Transportation
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Managing Organizations:

  University of Texas at Austin

  Austin, TX  United States  78712
• Performing Organizations:

  Arizona State University, Tempe

  Tempe, AZ  United States 
• Principal Investigators:

  Polzin, Steven

• Start Date: 20260901
• Expected Completion Date: 20280530
• Actual Completion Date: 0
• USDOT Program: University Transportation Centers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Data fusion; Statistical trends; Surveys; Travel behavior
• Subject Areas: Data and Information Technology; Research; Transportation (General);

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 02001766
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Center for Understanding Future of Travel Behavior and Demand
• Contract Numbers: 69A3552344815, 69A3552348320
• Files: UTC, RIP
• Created Date: Sep 4 2026 2:58PM