The American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) released its annual Top 100 Truck Bottlenecks Report.
Using global positioning service (GPS) data from more than one million freight trucks, the analysis measured levels of truck-involved congestion at over 300 locations on the national highway system. Twenty-nine states were found to have at least one bottleneck. For the third consecutive year, New Jersey was found to have the worst bottleneck. In 2020, the average peak-hour truck speed at bottlenecks was 43 miles/hour.
This was 34% higher than in 2019 because of reduced traffic resulting from COVID-19 stay-at-home orders. Reduced traffic both sped up many construction projects and limited slowdowns in construction zones. In March 2020, average truck speeds at some of the worst locations improved by 100 percent or more from a year earlier. In February 2020, truck activity increased because of panic buying, then immediately decreased in March because of business shutdowns. Normal levels of activity resumed in April and May.
