Travel in the United States continued its trend of year-over-year increases in October, according to the Federal Highway Administration. However, traffic volume was down in much of New England.

In its latest Travel Volume Trends report, the FHWA determined that drivers covered 276.04 billion miles during the month. This total marked a 1.6 percent increase from October 2015, when drivers traveled an estimated 271.61 billion miles.

The seasonally adjusted travel total for October stood at 270.4 billion miles, a year-over-year increase of 2.9 percent. Drivers covered an estimated 2.69 trillion miles in the first 10 months of 2016, while the moving 12-month total was 3.2 trillion miles.

Travel in the Northeast region—which includes the New England states, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania—increased 0.5 percent to 38.27 billion miles. However, overall travel in every New England state but Maine was down from the previous year.

In Connecticut, the estimated travel total fell 0.6 percent to 2.84 billion miles. This included a 0.7 percent decrease in travel on rural arterial roads to 2.08 billion miles and a 0.1 percent decrease on urban arterial roads to 139 million miles.

Rhode Island had the most significant drop in travel in the nation, with the estimated number of miles traveled during October dropping 4.6 percent to 568 million. While the state also had the sharpest drop in urban arterial travel—which fell 6 percent to 399 million miles—it also saw a 3.2 percent increase in rural arterial travel to 72 million miles.

Elsewhere in New England, overall travel was down 4.3 percent to 1.12 billion miles in New Hampshire, 1.2 percent to 5.07 billion miles in Massachusetts, and 0.7 percent to 616 million miles in Vermont. Maine, by contrast, had a 3.2 percent travel increase to 1.31 billion miles.

The North Central region—consisting of 12 states ranging from North Dakota to Ohio—had the largest travel increase, with the estimated mileage total rising 2.4 percent to 63.14 billion miles. In the South Atlantic region, which includes eight states from Maryland to Florida as well as the District of Columbia, travel was up 2 percent to 58.95 billion miles.

In the South Gulf region, which has eight states stretching from Kentucky to Texas, travel was up 1.9 percent to 53.67 billion miles. The 13 states of the Western region had a 1 percent travel increase to 62.02 billion miles.

Indiana had the month's largest increase in travel, with the state's total jumping 7.9 percent to 8.09 billion miles. This was followed by Michigan, where travel rose 4.8 percent to 9.25 billion miles. Three states—Colorado, Nevada, and Texas—had a 3.5 percent increase in travel.

Seventeen states had a decrease in urban arterial travel. After Rhode Island, the most significant drops were in Arkansas (down 4.8 percent to 1.21 billion miles) and New Hampshire (down 4.4 percent to 548 million miles).

Eight states experienced a decrease in rural arterial travel. New York had the largest drop, falling 5.6 percent to 1.11 billion miles. Other significant decreases occurred in New Hampshire, where rural arterial travel was down 4.1 percent to 279 million miles, and North Dakota, which had a 2.9 percent decrease to 448 million miles. In addition, the Northeast region's overall rural arterial travel was down 0.9 percent from the previous year, dropping to 5.02 billion miles.

The Travel Volume Trends reports are issued each month and include estimated travel totals from two months earlier. The reports are based on data from thousands of hourly traffic counting stations, which measure traffic volume and compare it to the same month in the previous year. October's report included data from 4,780 stations, including 30 in Connecticut and 79 in Rhode Island.