The Urban Mobility Report (UMR), produced by the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, is the longest-running and most widely cited study of traffic congestion in the United States. First published in 1987 and referenced more than 10,000 times by major outlets – including The New York Times, USA Today, and CNN – the Urban Mobility Report has become the definitive benchmark for measuring how much time, fuel, and money congestion costs American drivers.
The 2025 Urban Mobility Report found that Americans lost an average of 63 hours sitting in traffic in 2024, the highest level ever recorded. Drawing on crowdsourced INRIX speed data and Federal Highway Administration inventory data, the report delivers a comprehensive, year-over-year analysis of traffic conditions across 494 urban areas nationwide, with the deepest detail available for the 101 largest metro regions.
What the Urban Mobility Report Measures
The Urban Mobility Report tracks congestion through a set of standardized performance measures that make it possible to compare traffic conditions across cities and over time:
- Delay per Auto Commuter – the extra hours a typical commuter spends stuck in traffic each year
- Total Delay & Total Cost of Congestion – the aggregate hours and dollars congestion costs an entire urban area, based on a value of time and fuel lost to slower speeds
- Travel Time Index (TTI) – the ratio of peak-period travel time to free-flow travel time (a TTI of 1.30 means a 20-minute trip takes 26 minutes at rush hour)
- Planning Time Index (95th percentile) – a reliability measure showing how much extra time travelers should budget so they're late only one day a month
- Commuter Stress Index – the Travel Time Index calculated for peak-direction travel only
- Destination Access – a newer measure, added in the 2025 edition, that captures how many jobs and destinations residents can reasonably reach
Because no single measure tells the whole story, the report publishes rankings across all of these metrics, letting researchers weigh both the size of a region's congestion problem and its effect on individual travelers.
Who Uses Urban Mobility Report Data?
Metropolitan planning organizations and state DOTs use Urban Mobility Report data to prioritize highway and transit investments and to track whether congestion-relief projects are working. Journalists and elected officials cite it as the authoritative source on how their city's traffic stacks up nationally. Urban planners, logistics and freight companies, real estate analysts, and academic researchers all draw on the UMR to understand how congestion shapes commute times, economic productivity, and quality of life in America's largest metro areas.
Access Urban Mobility Report Data with Social Explorer
Ready to put Urban Mobility Report data to work? Sign up for a free trial of Social Explorer and get immediate access to Urban Mobility Report congestion measures alongside hundreds of other demographic, transportation, and urban planning datasets – all in one intuitive mapping and analysis platform. Whether you're benchmarking your city's traffic trends or studying congestion's toll on commuters nationwide, Social Explorer makes it easy to map, analyze, and share Urban Mobility Report insights – no technical expertise required.