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Transportation in Canada 1998 |
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15
Passenger Transportation
Automobile Transportation
The extent of private vehicle activity in Canada has unfortunately
not been monitored by any routine survey, and only fragmentary
information exists to show its development over time. Some of
that evidence is reviewed in what follows.
The firmest of the available indicators are the numbers of
vehicles registered, compiled annually and published by Statistics
Canada from reports from provinces and territories, each of which
is responsible for the licensing of vehicles and regulation of
their use. Registration statistics are available annually from
the earliest days of motor vehicle use, in the first decade of
this century. Trends in the period 1977 to 1997 in the main classes
of vehicles reported are illustrated in Figures 15-12 and 15-13.
Figure 15-12 shows vehicles reported by each jurisdiction as
"cars" and "trucks", using distinctions between
those two classes of vehicles that are unfortunately somewhat
obscure, and probably have changed substantially over time. The
figure shows the number of "cars" rising from 9,554,000
in 1977 to 13,487,000 in 1997, while the number of "trucks"
rose from 2,442,000 to 3,527,000 over the same period. The major
source of uncertainty lies in the distinction between a "car"
and a "light truck", and particularly in how passenger
vans and "multi-purpose vehicles" are classified by
the reporting jurisdictions. It seems likely that pickup trucks
and vans designed to carry freight are usually classified as "trucks",
but it is also the case that vehicle manufacturers designate other
passenger vans and multi-purpose vehicles as "light trucks"
for the application of safety and emissions regulations, and the
licensing jurisdiction might classify such vehicles either as
"cars" or as "trucks" depending on their local
conventions. It is not therefore clear that the "car"
numbers reported by Statistics Canada, and shown in Figure 15-12,
include all those vehicles designed primarily to carry passengers.
And as the numbers of passenger vans and multi-purpose vehicles
sold has risen fast in recent years, the reported statistics for
cars probably represent a declining proportion of the true numbers
of vehicles designed primarily to carry passengers.
Then the statistics reported for "trucks" include
a great variety of vehicles, ranging from small vans and multi-purpose
vehicles designed entirely to carry passengers, classified as
"trucks" due to the technicality mentioned above, through
pick-up trucks that are similar in size to cars, to all of the
larger freight-carrying vehicles, up to truck tractors used in
hauling the largest combinations of trailers. Within these reported
registration statistics, there is no distinction between trucks
used for commercial or business purposes and those used only for
the personal transportation of the owner; or even any simple distinction
between trucks of different sizes or carrying capacities. A practical
distinction exists in the federal safety standards between "light-duty"
and "heavy-duty" trucks, with the latter having a Gross
Vehicle Weight Rating of at least 4,536 kg. This is conventionally
used to distinguish what might called "true" trucks
- vehicles used exclusively for carrying freight - from the various
forms of light trucks. The statistics provided as Table 14-9 in
the Freight Transportation Chapter follow this definition of a
heavy truck, and report that there were an estimated 712,000 such
vehicles in 1997. By contrast, Figure 15-12 as noted shows that
Statistics Canada reported a total of 3,527,000 "trucks"
registered in that year. If both figures are accurate, the remaining
2,815,000 registered "trucks" were light trucks. As
we have observed, some of those were in fact private vehicles
used exclusively for private passenger transport; and of the remainder,
it is likely that the great majority are used predominantly for
private passenger purposes, with occasional use to haul personal
property; and that only a small proportion is used primarily for
commercial or business purposes.
Some of the uncertainty can now be resolved through the results
of the "National Private Vehicle Use Survey" (NAPVUS),
undertaken by Statistics Canada for Natural Resources Canada from
the fourth quarter of 1994 to the third quarter of 1996, results
of which have been recently released.Note 1 The survey identified
vehicles available for personal use - i.e. not used exclusively
for business purposes
- within a sample of households, then obtained short-period logs
of usage and fuel purchases for sampled vehicles. This allows
estimates to be made for the first time in recent yearsNote 2 of the number
of vehicles used for personal transportation; and the extent of
their use. Summary results for the last 12 months of the survey,
from the fourth quarter of 1995 to the third quarter of 1996,
are shown in Table 15-4.
The survey suggests a total of nearly 14.4 million vehicles
were used at least partially for private purposes in that year,
and travelled a total of some 247 billion vehicle-kilometres,
on an average of approximately 17,200 kilometres per vehicle.
The table also indicates that the average was slightly greater
for light trucks, at about 17,500 kilometres per vehicle,
than for cars, at 17,100 kilometres.
The classification of vehicles into "car" and "light
truck" in the survey was based on the vehicle type reported
by the respondents, with the former category including only "2-door
passenger car (including hatchback)", "4-door passenger
car (including hatchback)" and "station wagon";
while all "mini vans" and "pickups" were allocated
to "light trucks", together with "full-size vans"
and "other trucks". By comparison, the Statistics Canada
registration figures for the whole of 1996 record 13.251 million
cars but only 3.476 million trucks. If it can be inferred from
the numbers quoted above for heavy trucks in 1997 that they numbered
approximately 700,000 in 1996, the number of light trucks registered
in 1996 was only about 2.8 million. Clearly the definition of
light truck being applied in NAPVUS must include a large number
of vehicles classified as "cars" in the registration
statistics, particularly as some of the "light trucks"
in the registration statistics would have been used exclusively
for business purposes, and thus not have been reported in NAPVUS.
Overall from the two sets of numbers (assuming both sets are accurate)
it can be inferred that the difference between the total of about
16 million cars and light trucks from the registration statistics
and some 14.4 million such vehicles in NAPVUS - i.e. about 1.6
million vehicles - were either cars or light trucks used exclusively
for business purposes.
Figure 15-13 provides statistics for 1977 to 1997 for the other
classes of vehicles distinguishable within the registration reports
to Statistics Canada. The number of buses identified increased
from approximately 51,500 to 64,300, without substantial fluctuations.
On the other hand, the numbers of motorcycles and snowmobiles
can be seen to have varied significantly over this period. The
number of motorcycles peaked at 502,000 in 1983, but subsequently
declined to only 319,000 in 1997. Meanwhile the number of snowmobiles
fell by more than one-third between 1977 and 1983, to some 400,000,
but has since increased to some 707,000 in 1997.
Future data improvement
The absence of routine data on road vehicle use is finally
to be remedied by the new Canadian Vehicle Survey, initiated by
Statistics Canada under contract to Transport Canada in January
1999. The survey obtains 7-day trip logs from owners of vehicles
sampled continuously from official registration records. This
will allow annual estimates to be made of vehicle-kilometres for
the entire road vehicle fleet, including trucks and buses, and
their distributions by characteristics of the vehicles, the drivers,
and the trips. The first such annual estimates, for calendar 1999,
are expected to be available in the summer of 2000.
Automobile Transportation
- 15-1 Status of Transborder
Scheduled Air Services by Nationality
- 15-2 Status of Transborder
Air Services as of December 31, 1998
- 15-3 International Air Services
as of December 31, 1998 (Excluding Canada-US Transborder air
Services)
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NOTES:
1
See Tremblay, Victor, STATPLUS: "Enquête sur l'utilisation
des véhicules privés: 1994-1996. Résultats
sommaires", report to Natural Resources Canada, 1999.
2
Since the Fuel Consumption Surveys, undertaken by Statistics
Canada for Transport Canada between 1979 and 1988, but following
a different sampling methodology, and apparently identifying
a smaller proportion of total registered vehicles as "available
for private use".
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