Data from the 1995 American Travel Survey are presented in summary form and tables.

The U.S. Dept. of Transport. (DoT) Strategic Plan for FY 1997-2002 identifies 5 performance goals: safety, mobility, econ. growth & trade, human & natural environ., & nat. security. DoT conducts the NPTS to obtain info. on personal travel of U.S. households with respect to why, how, when, where from, where to, how frequently, how long, & with whom. The NPTS also provides info. by subgroups of the pop., e.g., by age, gender, race, zero-vehicle households, which allows important policy analyses of how transport. serves these groups. This report provides the results of the 1995 NPTS of travel by the civilian, non-institutionalized pop. age 5 & older.

"Census microdata are the confidential records of specific individuals and housing units from whom Decennial Census or American Community Survey responses have been obtained. The U.S. Census Bureau also draws a sample from the full set of microdata and makes these sampled records available in the Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) data products, so that users can develop their own tabulations. These data are being used by state departments of transportation (DOTs) and metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) for studies, such as analyses of the commuting characteristics of population subgroups, and for supporting travel demand model and land use models."--Preface

TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Synthesis 358: Statewide Travel Forecasting Models examines statewide travel forecasting models designed to address planning needs and provide forecasts for statewide transportation, including passenger vehicle and freight movements. The report explores the types and purposes of models being used, integration of state and urban models, data requirements, computer needs, resources (including time, funding, training, and staff), limitations, and overall benefits. The report includes five case studies, two that focus on passenger components, two on freight components, and one on both passenger and freight.

TRB has released the third edition of Commuting in America. The report was prepared by author Alan E. Pisarski under a joint project of the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) and the Transit Cooperative Research Program (TCRP). Commuting in America III is one of the most comprehensive documents of its kind. Based on the latest census information available, it contains 155 figures, 79 tables, and some 100 "factlets" that tell the story of America's commuting trends and patterns over the last ten years. This publication will be a valuable reference for the transportation community--practitioners, researchers, and decision makers--who wish to understand how individual behavior and public policies have affected, and will continue to affect, commuting patterns. A press release and factsheets on information contained in Commuting in America III is also available.

"I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to." And, as soon as Bill Bryson was old enough, he left. Des Moines couldn't hold him, but it did lure him back. After ten years in England he returned to the land of his youth, and drove almost 14,000 miles in search of a mythical small town called Amalgam, the kind of smiling village where the movies from his youth were set. Instead he drove through a series of horrific burgs, which he renamed Smellville, Fartville, Coleslaw, Coma, and Doldrum. At best his search led him to Anywhere, USA, a lookalike strip of gas stations, motels and hamburger outlets populated by obese and slow-witted hicks with a partiality for synthetic fibres. He discovered a continent that was doubly lost: lost to itself because he found it blighted by greed, pollution, mobile homes and television; lost to him because he had become a foreigner in his own country.