In my column last month, I discussed Australia’s high road toll and detailed this is partly to do with the fact that the older trucks in our nation’s truck fleet do not feature the advanced safety systems found in newer trucks.
I detailed that by global standards the Australian truck fleet is very old when compared to other global markets.
For example, Norway’s truck fleet has an average age of 6.2 years, Germany 7.6, Sweden 7.7 years, United Kingdom 7.8 years, Japan 8.1 years and Finland 8.2 years.
According to the Road Vehicles Australia Report that is released annually by the Australian Bureau of Infrastructure and Transport Research Economics (BITRE), in 2024 the average age of vehicles in the Australian truck fleet was 14.8 years. Australia has a relatively old light vehicle (car) fleet too. Also not good for road safety outcomes.
Given our old vehicle fleet, how do we compare against the rest of the world in regard to road safety outcomes?
BITRE have analysed this in terms of road deaths versus differing levels of population, motorisation and distances travelled, in 31 OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) nations. The latest BITRE report was published in late 2023 and uses the latest available international data.
In terms of the fatality rate per 100,000 population, Australia’s rate of 4.54 deaths was ranked 18th out of the 31 nations.
The countries with the five lowest fatality rates were Norway (2.14), Sweden (2.17), Iceland (2.39), Japan (2.57) and the UK (2.61). Including Germany (3.35) who ranked 9th, all have much newer truck fleets that offer more advanced vehicle safety systems.
Please refer to the below figure.
Further, between 2013 and 2022 Australia’s road fatality rate declined by 11.4 per cent.
Over the same period, the OECD median rate declined by 20.8 per cent. Almost twice the improvement that was seen in Australia. Looking at the data in terms of the fatality rate per 10,000 registered vehicles in 2022, Australia’s rate of 0.57 was ranked 13th out of the 24 OEDC nations with available data.
The nations with the five lowest rates were Iceland (0.25), Norway (0.27), Sweden (0.35), Japan (0.35) and Switzerland (0.36). Between 2013 and 2022 Australia’s fatality rate declined by 17.2 per cent.
Over the same period, the OECD median rate declined by 25.6 per cent. Finally, in terms of the fatality rate per 100 million vehicle kilometres travelled in 2022, Australia’s rate of 0.49 was ranked 6th out of 11 nations with available data. Ahead of us were, Norway (0.26), Sweden (0.28), Finland (0.40), Germany (0.40) and Slovenia (0.41).
Between 2013 and 2022 Australia’s fatality rate declined by only 0.6 per cent. Over the same period, the OECD median rate declined by a significant 8.1 per cent.
The three metrics, population, vehicles-registered and vehicle kilometres travelled all show a high level of correlation and it is not difficult to draw parallels with an older vehicle fleet, as we have in Australia, and poor road safety outcomes.
TIC calls upon Australian governments at all levels, to develop policies that will lead to a positive reduction in our nation’s truck fleet age.
Tony McMullan
CEO, Truck Industry Council
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