Incidents and resulting congestion on Interstate highways add uncertainty to travel times, imposing significant costs on business operations and regional economic development. This project presents an effort to quantify the economic impacts of traffic incidents on North Carolina’s Interstate facilities. Businesses were carefully selected for interviews based on their substantial shipping needs. Analyses of 29 selected businesses including carriers are conducted, showing an average hourly cost of unexpected delay of $145 to the surveyed businesses (2006 dollars). A more focused analysis by sector and region shows that various types of businesses and regions differ in their sensitivity to unexpected congestion. Transportation and warehousing displayed the highest hourly cost among sampled industrial sectors, followed by the retail trade and manufacturing sectors. Case studies further showed that, although a majority used information technology to track shipments, few businesses sought pre-shipment traffic information or were aware of available traffic information services. The surveyed businesses generally expressed a desire for better communication and information services from the state department of transportation. It is clear from this study that businesses incur costs due to unexpected delays on the Interstate system, adding to the cost of production. The implications of the results are explored in the study.