The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has announced that the amount of commercial vehicles in Australia has increased in 2010.
According to the href=”http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/mf/9309.0″ title=”2010 Motor Vehicle Census”>2010 Motor Vehicle Census (MVC), there were 16.1 million motor vehicles registered in Australia at 31 March 2010. This is 2.5 percent higher than the number of registrations from the 31 March 2009 Motor Vehicle Census and an increase of 15.4 percent since the 2005 MVC snapshot, when there were 13.9 million vehicles registered in Australia. The average annual growth over this five year period was 2.9 percent.
In the five years between 31 March 2005 and 31 March 2010, the light commercial vehicle sector showed the largest growth with an increase of 21.2 percent. Articulated trucks rose by 18.2 percent, whilst rigid trucks and non-freight carrying trucks had increases of 17 percent and 12.9 percent respectively over the same period.
Light commercial vehicles accounted for 15.3 percent of all vehicles registered in Australia at 31 March 2010, the second highest proportion behind passenger vehicles. Since 31 March 2005, all states and territories have recorded increases in registrations of this vehicle type, with Queensland showing the largest percentage growth (30.4 percent) and New South Wales the smallest (14.8 percent).
While Queensland accounted for the third highest number of vehicle registrations of all states, it had the second highest number of light commercial vehicles registered in Australia (26.0 percent) behind New South Wales (26.7 percent). Victoria had 25.6 percent of all vehicles registered in Australia (behind New South Wales, 29.1 percent) but only 22.2 percent of total light commercial vehicles.
Rigid trucks accounted for 2.7 percent of the total number of vehicles registered at 31 March 2010. Registrations of rigid trucks with a gross vehicle mass (GVM) greater than 20 tonnes have increased by 29.8 percent since 31 March 2005, while registrations of rigid trucks with a GVM of 20 tonnes or less have increased by 14.3 percent over the same period.
At 31 March 2010, 82,436 articulated trucks were registered in Australia. While this is 18.2 percent higher than the number of registrations five years earlier, the growth has been exclusively in articulated trucks in the larger gross combination mass (GCM) categories. Over this period, the number of registrations of articulated trucks with a GCM up to and including 60 tonnes has dropped 2.3 percent and the number of articulated trucks with GCM over 60 tonnes has increased 49.3 percent. This has resulted in an articulated truck fleet where the proportion of registrations with GCM over 60 tonnes has increased from 39.8 percent at 31 March 2005 to 50.2 percent at 31 March 2010.
Victoria had the largest number of articulated trucks on register. It was also the state with the highest number of registrations with a GCM greater than 60 tonnes (13,019). This is 55 percent greater than the number of registrations in this category at 31 March 2005. At 31 March 2010, 82.8 percent of Northern Territory articulated trucks had a GCM greater than 60 tonnes (855). Western Australia has the lowest proportion of articulated trucks with a GCM greater than 60 tonnes, with only 1.4 percent of vehicles in this class (170).
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