Data Spotlights
Tuesday, October 7, 2025
Browse this page to catch up on our Data Spotlight articles
Data spotlights represent data and statistics from a specific period of time, and do not reflect ongoing data collection. As individual spotlights are static stories, they are not subject to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) web standards and may not be updated after their publication date. Please contact BTS to request updated information.
2025
- Aircraft Maintenance
- Transborder Trends: the Weight of Freight
- Trends in Bus and Bus Passenger Border Crossings
- Navigation Channel Bridges at Top-Ranking Ports
- March 2025 Marks Record in Value of U.S. Freight with Canada and Mexico
- Live Monitoring of Tanker Vessel Calls at U.S. Ports
2024
- BTS Data Reveals Long-Term Trend Emerging in North American Freight Trucking
- Transportation Cost Burden Falls Significantly for Second-Lowest, but No Other Income Group
- Transportation Commodity Brief: U.S. Freight Flows with Canada and Mexico in Transportation Commodities (2017-2024)
- Counting the Transportation Workforce: Nearly 1 Million Self-Employed
- U.S. Border Freight Transportation Resiliency
- Docked Bikeshare Ridership Increase in 2023 on Most but Not All Systems
- Increases in Highway Construction Costs Could Reduce IIJA Funding Allocated to Transportation Up to 40% Over the Next Five Years
- Transportation Statistics for Earth Day
- Information About the Port of Baltimore
- Learn about Time Zones
- Mapping Out Success: a BTS Field Trip
- U.S. Trade and the Impact of Low Water Levels in Gatun Lake and the Panama Canal
2023
- Scooting and Pedaling to Thanksgiving Dinner
- 85% of Rural Residents Have Reasonable Access to Intercity Transportation; Lack of Reasonable Access Falls Disproportionately on Low-Income Households
- Adjusting Rail Car Safety Standards to Meet the Moment
- Modal Profiles: U.S. Freight Transportation with Canada, Mexico, and China
- Unemployment in Transportation Remains Above Pre-Pandemic Levels; Women Experiencing Higher Rates than Men
- The Household Cost of Transportation: Is it Affordable?
- BTS Helping Local Communities Make Informed Decisions
- TransBorder Data Mid-Year Report 2023
- BTS Celebrates Bus Month with National Transit Map (NTM) tutorial
- National Transportation Library Marks 25th Anniversary
- Year-over-year declines in motor gasoline prices dampen inflation despite rising 10% from December 2022 to May 2023
- Philadelphia Bridge Collapse Focuses Attention on I-95 Freight Corridor Movements
- Notable for Bike To Work Week: National Spending on Bicycles and Accessories Grew 620% from March 2020 to March 2023; Docked Bikeshare Grew 42% percent
- Number of Alternative Fueling Stations Nearly Doubles Since 2020; EV Charging Leads the Way
- Pandemic Alters Profile of U.S.-North American Trade and Border Crossings
2022
- Low Water on the Mississippi Slows Critical Freight Flows
- Increase in Transportation Consumer Price Index Accounts for Nearly 27% of Year-Over-Year Overall CPI Growth; Lowest Share of Inflation Since February 2021
- Making Transportation Count for 30 Years
- Record Breaking Increases in Motor Fuel Prices in 2022
- U.S. Ports Work through Daunting Challenges to Deliver the Goods
- North American Freight Data Reveals Growth in Unsung Trade Modes
- BTS Freight Transportation Services Index Increases for Third Consecutive Month; What’s a Freight Transportation Services Index?
- Tropical Storm Elsa Makes Landfall in Florida; BTS Map Shows U.S. Ports Affected by 2020 Named Storms
- Bikeshare Ridership Up in March and April; BTS Marks National Bike Month with New Gateway to Bicycling Data and Visualizations
- I-40 Bridge Failure Causes Multimodal Challenges
- On National Maritime Day and Every Day, U.S. Economy Relies on Waterborne Shipping
- Historic Week for American Rail
- America's Passenger Railroad Turns 50!
- Earth Day 2021 Arrives as U.S. Electric Vehicle Sales Continue to Grow
- Explore Transportation History Archived at the National Transportation Library
- Suez Canal Blockage by Ever Given Will Affect U.S. Ports, Businesses, Consumers
- As Daylight Saving Time Approaches, a Good Opportunity to Look at U.S. Time Zones
- Resumed Trade with China and Consumer Activity in Late Quarters Leaves Top U.S. Container Ports with Solid 2020
- Transportation Delivers Harvest from Field and Farm to Family Tables
- Transportation Puts Veterans in the Driver’s Seat…and in the Wheelhouse, the Cockpit, the Railyard, the Transit Garage and the Air Traffic Control Tower
- This year, as every year, there's no trick to how Halloween treats move across America
- COVID-19 Restrictions Upend U.S. Land Border Crossings
- Taking the Measure of 2021 in Transportation
2021
- Thanksgiving 2021 Air Travel is No Turkey
- COVID-19 Pandemic Drops 2020 Household Spending on Transportation by Nearly 14%
- Twenty Years Later, How Does Post-9/11 Air Travel Compare to the Disruptions of COVID-19?
- COVID-Affected Micromobility Changes Differ by City
- Summer Mobility Heats Up: Passenger Airline Flights, Rail Ridership, and Road Travel Increased Through Mid-July, Delta COVID-19 Variant Threatens Travel Gains
- BTS Mines Multiple Data Sources for Clues to New Transportation Normal
- Navigating the Complexities of COVID-19 Stimulus Funding for Transportation
- 2021 Memorial Day weekend middle-distance travel up from 2020 and 2019, but total trips still down from 2019
- March 2021 Airline Passenger Volume Shows Signs of Aviation Recovery
- Transportation Jobs Recover Slowly after July 2020 Record High 15.7% Unemployment
- COVID-19 Crushes Bikeshare and E-Scooter Ridership
- After a Year of COVID-19, the View from BTS
- Commercial Aviation in 2020: downturn in airline passengers, employment, profits, and flights operated, in the wake of COVID-19, was partially mitigated by increases in air cargo
- Resumed Trade with China and Consumer Activity in Late Quarters Leaves Top U.S. Container Ports with Solid 2020
- COVID-19 Takes a Big Bite out of 2020 Passenger Transportation
- Holiday Travel Season Brings Surge in 50-500-Mile Trips; Other Distances Lag as More People Stay Put This Year
- Thanksgiving week travel: total number of trips down, long distance trips up over last year
- World Statistics Day and the BTS Response to COVID-19
- Overall Travel Down, Long-Distance Travel Up for Labor Day Weekend as Americans Bid Goodbye to COVID-19 Summer
- 4th of July Travel
- Thanksgiving 2021 Air Travel is No Turkey
- 5.3 Million Miles to Gold; the U.S. Olympic Team Travels to 2021 Tokyo Games amid a Summer of Air Travel Challenges
- March 2021 Airline Passenger Volume Shows Signs of Aviation Recovery
- Commercial Aviation in 2020: downturn in airline passengers, employment, profits, and flights operated, in the wake of COVID-19, was partially mitigated by increases in air cargo
2020
- Airlines Hit On-Time High in September while Scheduled, Operated Flights Decrease
- August Flight Operations Edge up for Some Airlines, Down for Others
- U.S. Airlines operate 56% more flights in July than June
- Airlines operate more flights in June; on-time performance hits a high
- Flight Cancellations Stabilize in May, but Total Flights Hit Another Record Low
- April's One-Two Punch: Operated Flights Hit Record Low
- March Day-by-Day: How Flight Cancellations Rose