Under a report required by the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) act, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) released details on the National Highway Freight Network (NHFN) this week.
This condition and performance report, designed for Congressional lawmakers, is based on a series of roadways, which include critical (primary) highway freight system highways, other interstate roads not covered by the previous designation, as well as public, critical rural freight corridors and critical urban freight corridors. The new designations under the NHFN added the latter two groups. Before that, it operated solely on the PHFS and other interstate roads, amounting to around 51,029 miles. The report now covers tens of thousands more.
That coverage found the National Highway System faces a record amount of freight annually now, with trucks responsible for nearly 60 percent of the total U.S. freight volume — or about 30 million tons. In carrying such freight, they are also responsible for around $34 billion annually. Such figures secure the highway system’s place as the most-used transportation mode for freight by tonnage and goods value.