Need for Speed Act

The Need for Speed Act (S 3906) requires the U.S. Department of Transportation to develop a national infrastructure intelligence tool in partnership with a university transportation research institute. This tool will integrate existing public data - such as traffic speeds, crash records, truck parking availability, freight movement, and highway condition reports - to help transportation agencies identify congestion causes, measure impacts, and deploy solutions more quickly. It directly affects federal, state, and local transportation agencies, metropolitan planning organizations, and regional coalitions that manage roads and traffic systems. The tool must be updated annually using $50 million in Highway Trust Fund funding over five years, leveraging current data systems like the Federal Highway Administration’s performance monitoring tools.