Would you cross state lines for your holiday turkey?

Mississippi residents traveled the farthest to see their family and friends over the Thanksgiving holiday, according to data released today by Wejo. Residents of the Magnolia State traveled 37% farther than on a normal day, while their New Hampshire counterparts preferred to stick much closer to home.

By comparing typical weekday driving distances with Thanksgiving and Black Friday journeys, Wejo also learned:

• People will, on average, drive 20% farther the day before Thanksgiving to celebrate the holidays
• Pennsylvania to New Jersey was the most popular interstate journey
• And it wasn’t all about online retail on Black Friday, as shopping mall visits increased 20% in Florida.

Data scientists from wejo, the mobility data ecosystem pioneer, organized and analyzed data from millions of connected vehicles in the US to uncover the driving patterns of Americans over Thanksgiving and Black Friday.

“Mobility data from connected vehicles helps us to better understand the way people travel, allowing us to work with our partners to identify ways to make those journeys as frictionless as possible. This will improve the overall driving experience for everyone” said Richard Barlow, Founder and CEO of Wejo.

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Thanksgiving

• Nationwide on Thanksgiving, drivers traveled an average of 15%  farther than on a typical Thursday
• Drivers in the neighboring southern states were prepared to spend the most time behind the wheel to reach their Thanksgiving destination, with a typical one-third increase in journey distances. Mississipi showed an increase of 37% versus the usual amount of time traveled, Louisiana 28%, Alabama 25% and Arkansas 23%
• In the rest of the US, journey distances stayed the same or drivers traveled shorter distances than usual
• Wednesday is the most popular ‘journey home’ day in the US with a 20% increase in distance traveled for long journeys
• Pennsylvania to New Jersey was the most popular interstate journey on Thanksgiving, with 3% of all journeys ending in New Jersey having started in Pennsylvania
• Six percent of all New Jersey journeys were interstate, compared with 0.5% of journeys in Georgia.

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Black Friday

Data from last week’s holiday period also revealed a Black Friday bonanza at electronics and furniture stores, with visits as much as doubling in some areas. For instance, in Florida:

• Visits by shoppers to electronics stores almost doubled (85% increase) and visits to furniture stores increased by 40% as consumers sought special deals
• Conversely visits to stand-alone supermarkets fell 9%
• Malls saw a 25% increase in visitors and a 30% increase in dwell time, as consumers spent more time in stores and socializing
• Brick and mortar shopping habits die hard. There was no change in the distance people were prepared to drive to malls, and shoppers were not willing to spend longer than a usual Friday behind the wheel.

Wejo organizes historical and real-time vehicle data to deliver insights that significantly improve the road experience of drivers, owners and riders. To date, wejo has curated 140 billion miles of data and expects to have 10 million cars on its platform by the end of the year. It processes 12 billion data points every day and counting. The global connected vehicle market was valued at $63 billion in 2017, and is forecast to increase to $225 billion by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 17.1% from 2018 to 2025.