BEREA, Ohio — A record number of vehicles traveled the Ohio Turnpike for a third straight year in 2017, the Ohio Turnpike and Infrastructure Commission announced.

The 55.2 million cars, trucks, and buses that used the toll road was up from 54.9 million the year before, an 0.6 percent increase. Those vehicles traveled a combined 3.038 billion miles, up slightly from 2016 and second only to 2006, the commission reported.

The turnpike commission also said the number of incidents causing traffic delays during the year declined to 230, from 284 in 2016. Increasing use of nighttime lane closings for construction and maintenance was a factor in that reduction, the commission said, along with stepped-up enforcement and educational efforts to promote greater compliance with speed limits and attentive driving.

A new credit-card processing system, meanwhile, sped up credit transactions at toll booths, reducing motorists’ aggregate wait time by 12,000 hours over the year, the commission said. The percentage of vehicles using E-ZPass electronic toll tags, meanwhile, increased to 59.5 percent, including 84.7 percent of all commercial vehicles.

First Published January 29, 2018, 5:00 a.m.