The number of vehicle miles traveled in the United States was down in most regions in January, according to the Federal Highway Administration. However, a significant travel boost in the West helped balance out these decreases and led to a slight increase in overall U.S. travel.

The FHWA estimates that Americans traveled a total of 245.5 billion miles in the first month of the year. This was up 0.4 percent from the January 2017 total of 244.57 billion miles. Meanwhile, the seasonally adjusted travel total of 267 billion miles was down 0.1 percent from the previous year.

The 12-month moving travel total reached 3.21 trillion miles. This was up from 3.18 trillion miles in January 2017.

The 13 states in the Western region were chiefly responsible for the January increase, as the remaining four regions all showed a drop in travel. In the West, drivers put an estimated 54.27 billion miles on their odometers – up 5.2 percent from the previous year.

The Northeast—which includes the New England states as well as New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania—had the largest year-over-year travel decrease. Drivers covered an estimated 31.55 billion miles, down 1.8 percent from January 2017.

Rhode Island was the only state in the region with a travel increase. The vehicle miles traveled in the state came to an estimated 427 million, up 3.8 percent from the previous year. This included a 4.3 percent increase in travel on urban arterial roads to 342 million miles, although rural arterial travel fell 2.3 percent to 30 million miles.

In Connecticut, drivers traveled an estimated 2.27 billion miles. This was down 2 percent from January 2017, and included a 2 percent drop in urban arterial travel to 1.67 billion miles and a 1.5 percent decrease in rural arterial travel to 110 million miles.

Travel in the South Gulf region, eight states ranging from Kentucky to Texas, was down 1.1 percent to 49.93 billion miles. In the South Atlantic region—eight states from Maryland to Florida as well as the District of Columbia—travel fell 1 percent to 55.55 billion miles. The North Central region, which includes 12 states stretching from North Dakota to Ohio, travel dropped 0.1 percent to 54.21 billion miles.

The state with the single most significant increase in travel was Oregon, whose travel total in January 2017 was depressed by a series of major snowstorms. Drivers in the state traveled an estimated 2.77 billion miles, up 12.1 percent from the previous year.

The travel total of 1.28 billion miles in Idaho marked a year-over-year increase of 11.8 percent. In Wyoming, the travel total increased 6.1 percent to 653 million miles.

Twenty-four states had year-over-year travel decreases. The sharpest decline occurred in Louisiana, where the vehicle miles traveled dropped 6.2 percent to 3.7 billion miles. Tennessee experienced a 4.4 percent decrease in travel to 5.91 billion miles, while Vermont's travel was down 4.3 percent to 524 million miles.

The Federal Highway Administration's monthly Traffic Volume Trends reports are based on thousands of continuous traffic counting stations, which measure traffic volume against the previous year and estimate a state's travel total based on this information. January's report included information from 4,520 stations.