BTS Releases Transportation Public Finance Statistics 2024 Data

Today, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS) released the Transportation Public Finance Statistics (TPFS) with final 2024 data. TPFS provides information on transportation-related revenue and expenditures for all levels of Government, including Federal, state, and local, and for all modes of transportation.

BTS plans to release 2024 State by State TPFS numbers July of 2026.

As seen in the chart below, most highway expenditure occurs at the state and local level - and while the majority of the funding ($262.9 billion) comes from state and local governments, $65.1 comes from transfers from the Federal Government, including but not limited to transfers from the highway trust fund. Of the state and local government funding, $130.9 billion is user-based revenue but the majority ($132.1 billion) is from other taxes and general funds. Federal revenue is mostly highway user taxes ($46.9 billion) but some ($12.4 billion) is from general and other funds.

2024 U.S. Highway Funding: A Visual Flow of Public Revenue and Outlays (billions)

Note: BTS generated this diagram using NotebookLM with TPFS data as inputs.The sum of federal expenditures and transfers to state and local governments exceeds total federal revenues by $10.5 because some funding represents drawdowns of the existing Highway Trust Fund balance. State and local total revenues (plus federal transfers) exceed state and local expenditures by $22.3 billion because some funds went to pay down debts.

As seen in the chart below, almost all transit transit expenditure occurs at the state and local level - and while the majority of the funding ($76.1 billion) comes from state and local governments, $19.8 comes from transfers from the Federal Government.

2024 U.S. Transit Funding: A Visual Flow of Public Revenue and Outlays (billions)

What's new about TPFS?
BTS is releasing statistics based on final data in May instead of preliminary estimates, increasing the timeliness of final data by seven months. BTS plans to release 2024 state level data this summer increasing the timeliness of these statistics by five months.

TPFS expands upon the expenditures and revenues of Government Transportation Finance Statistics (GTFS), a previous BTS product, by including new data sources, such as the full Amtrak financials. TPFS includes additional categories to address policy questions - including expenditures broken down between capital and non-capital spending, while revenues now show user-based revenues (i.e., transit fares). TPFS also differentiates between Federal cash flows from transportation trust funds separately from general funds.

TPFS Products:
Homepage
Data Tabulation Tool
Download the full TPFS dataset
TPFS User Guide
TPFS Technical Documentation

TPFS Visualizations:
Revenue
Expenditure
Revenue and Expenditure
Archived data

To receive updates from BTS directly to your email, please consider subscribing to our GovDelivery service.