Following a month of year-over-year travel decreases, driven by declines in much of the East Coast and Midwest, drivers were again putting more miles on their odometers in May.

May saw an estimated 286.17 billion vehicle miles traveled in the United States, according to the latest Traffic Volume Trends report from the Federal Highway Administration. This marked a year-over-year increase of 0.8 percent. The seasonally adjusted travel total of 269.1 billion miles represented an annual increase of 0.4 percent.

The month's figures were a significant reversal from April, when travel was down 0.2 percent from the previous year. Late season snowstorms likely hampered travel in much of the U.S., with three of the five regions outlined by the FHWA experiencing an annual decrease in travel.

Drivers traveled an estimated 1.3 trillion miles in the first five months of the year. The moving 12-month total stood at 3.22 trillion miles, up from 3.19 trillion at the same time in 2017.

In the Northeast region—which includes the New England states as well as New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania—the travel total for May stood at 40.15 billion vehicle miles. This was up 0.7 percent from May 2017.

Connecticut's estimated travel total was 2.94 billion miles, a year-over-year increase of 0.9 percent. This included a 1.8 percent increase in rural arterial travel to 150 million miles and a 0.8 percent increase in urban arterial travel to 2.15 billion miles.

In Rhode Island, overall travel rose 3 percent to 772 million miles. This was the third most significant travel increase in the nation and included a 3 percent increase in urban arterial travel to 599 million miles and a 2.6 percent increase in rural arterial travel to 61 million miles.

The South Gulf region, which includes eight states ranging from Texas to Kentucky, had the most significant travel increase, with the regional total of 57.97 billion miles marking a 1.4 percent increase from May 2017. Travel was up 0.8 percent in both the 13-state Western region and the 12 states of the North Central region. Drivers traveled an estimated 62.19 billion miles in the former region and 64 billion miles in the latter.

The South Atlantic region, which includes the District of Columbia and eight states stretching from Maryland to Florida, was the only one with a travel decrease. Overall travel in these states fell 0.4 percent to 61.87 billion miles.

Wyoming had the largest year over year travel increase at 3.4 percent, with its May total standing at 813 million miles. Travel in the District of Columbia was up 3.3 percent to 329 million miles.

Eight states had year-over-year decreases to their travel total. The most significant decline occurred in Georgia, which had a 2.8 percent drop in travel to 11.14 billion miles. Travel in Tennessee fell 1.4 percent to 6.73 billion miles.

The FHWA's monthly travel reports are based on data from thousands of continuous traffic counting stations, which measure traffic volume against the same time in the previous year to estimate the number of vehicle miles traveled in each state. May's report used information from 4,818 stations, including 35 in Rhode Island and nine in Connecticut.