Transportation Economic Trends

Value of Transportation Infrastructure and Other Assets:

National Highway Construction Cost Index

Construction costs affect the amount that governments invest in new roads, highways, and bridges. These costs depend on the prices of many inputs, including materials like steel and asphalt, labor costs, and overhead costs. This page discusses construction costs for transportation modes for which data are available. 
2022 Year-in-Review
  • As measured by the National Highway Construction Cost Index (NHCCI), highway construction costs increased in every quarter since the fourth quarter of 2020 through the third quarter of 2022 (latest available); growing 49.8 percent over the seven quarters.  
  • The NHCCI reached a new all-time high in the third quarter of 2022 and grew at the second fastest rate (9.0 percent) from the level in the previous quarter. The fastest growth from the level in the previous quarter was in the second quarter of 2022 (11.9 percent).
Highway construction costs
The NHCCI, produced by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), measures the average change over time in the prices paid by State transportation departments for roadway construction materials and services over time. It can be used to track price changes in highway construction.

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Recommended citation
U.S. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Transportation Economic Trends, available at www.bts.gov/product/transportation-economic-trends.
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Related Measures
Bureau of Transportation Statistics
The Bureau of Transportation Statistics, part of the U.S. Department of Transportation, is the preeminent source of statistics on commercial aviation, multimodal freight activity, and transportation economics, and provides context to decision makers and the public for understanding statistics on transportation.