This report provides a snapshot of traffic congestion in the United States by summarizing recent trends in congestion. The report also suggests a number of operational solutions for transportation agencies to consider in order to help ease the growth of congestion and increase the reliability of travel times across the nation. The report Traffic Congestion and Reliability: Trends and Advanced Strategies for Congestion Mitigation provides a snapshot of congestion in the United States by summarizing recent trends in congestion, highlighting the role of travel time reliability in the effects of congestion, and describing efforts to reduce the growth of congestion. This is the second in an annual series developed by the Federal Highway Administration's (FHWA) Office of Operations.

Much of the report is devoted to communicating recent trends in congestion. One of the key principles that the FHWA has promoted is that the measures used to track congestion should be based on the travel time experienced by users of the highway system. While the transportation profession has used many other types of measures to track congestion (such as "level of service"), travel time is a more direct measure of how congestion affects users. Travel time is understood by a wide variety of audiences—both technical and non-technical—as a way to describe the performance of the highway system. All of the congestion measures used in the report are based on this concept.

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More Information: www.ops.fhwa.dot.gov/congestion_report/index.htm