13. Transportation Statistics

Regulations were introduced for transport data collection and
developmental work on a "Canadian Vehicle Survey" was initiated.

Reviewing the state of transportation in Canada requires information, statistics and analysis. While this report makes extensive use of various sources of data, the limited availability of statistics has narrowed the scope and extent of its coverage. Nevertheless, the usefulness of transport statistics is evolving rapidly.

Owners and/or operators of transportation facilities require statistics to monitor trends and performance, forecast changes, judge the adequacy of their facilities and services, evaluate their competitive position, and develop alternatives to improve efficiency and economic performance. Designers and overseers of transportation policy need to monitor developments in activities and carrier markets. Regulators need to measure the safety and environmental damage control aspects of system performance, design cost-effective interventions, and evaluate their efforts after implementation.

Governments are becoming increasingly concerned with transportation safety and transportation's environmental impacts. As such, they will continue to be involved in prescribing the performance characteristics of transportation infrastructure and vehicles, setting operating and maintenance practices for carriers, and determining shippers' obligations in handling hazardous materials. They will also continue to enforce regulations by inspecting equipment and facilities, testing equipment and operators, auditing enterprises, and controlling road traffic behaviour.

In addition, the travelling and tax-paying public, employees of transportation-related industries, and transportation planners and researchers all have legitimate interests in obtaining comprehensive national statistics on transportation in Canada. Prior to 1997, there was no routine compilation of transportation information in a single source, but that gap is being filled by this report, as required by the Canada Transportation Act.

The legislation directs that the annual report provide extensive quantitative information, which the department interprets broadly to allow non-specialists to understand the transportation system and its performance. The legislation also directs that the previous calendar year be the focus of the report, posing an additional challenge to obtain statistics within a very short time frame.

The report does not, however, assemble a compendium of statistics, but rather provides interpretations of statistics that reveal characteristics and trends. Brief summary tables and graphics present much of the quantitative information, while a data compendium available on Transport Canada's Web site contains the underlying statistics.

Improved National Statistics in 1997

Transport Canada's past, present and future changes to the ownership and operations of transportation in Canada have had important consequences for national statistics. A number of organizations in each mode of transportation - air, marine, road and rail - are no longer covered by routine federal statistics-gathering. For example, organizations that were previously government operations, such as many airports and ports and the air navigation system, used to provide their operating and financial statistics within Transport Canada but are no longer required to do so in the reorganized department. In addition, they are not the subject of Statistics Canada industry surveys.

The Canada Transportation Act of 1996 (section 50Note 1) provided a solution to this problem. It gave the Minister of Transport the authority to require data on the operations of any transportation undertaking under federal jurisdiction. Once regulations were introduced, the provision further clarified the Minister's authority to obtain data for policy development, operations or program planning, and for the preparation of this annual report.

During 1997, regulations were introduced concerning rail undertakings, marine service undertakings, federal airports and Local Airport Authorities, Nav Canada, and the St. Lawrence Seaway. Subsequent regulations will apply to ports, including those under federal operation and the proposed Canadian Ports Authorities, and to the non-carrier undertakings in grain transportation - elevators and terminals.

Major Remaining Gaps

While these regulations will broaden the information available on commercial transportation enterprises, there continues to be insufficient national statistics on private transportation activities, which account for almost all national passenger travel (passenger-kilometres) and a significant portion of freight traffic (tonne-kilometres). These gaps limit the government's ability to plan for infrastructure and public-carrier service requirements, understand private-transport accident risks and environmental damage, and compare accident risk and environmental damage intermodally.Note 2

To be even more effective in the future, the government requires data that includes:

Remedial Action

During 1997, Transport Canada, in partnership with Statistics Canada, began development of the "Canadian Vehicle Survey," a new national survey to gather information on the road vehicle fleet, vehicle-kilometres and tonne-kilometres.

In collaboration with the Canadian Council of Motor Transport Administrators and the vehicle licencing authorities in the provinces and territories, Statistics Canada draws samples of vehicles from vehicle registration files and asks owners to provide information on activities, including one-to-seven-day logs of all trips. These include the odometer readings for each trip, the start and finish times, driver demographics, the number of occupants for passenger vehicles, and commodities carried for freight vehicles.

Throughout 1997, Statistics Canada and the collaborating agencies formed working groups on a methodology that would allow access to registration files, while still safeguarding confidentiality. In addition, the groups designed questionnaires and tested them on focus groups. By the end of the year, they had started a pilot program, sampling 500 vehicles in Quebec and British Columbia.

If the methods prove sufficiently reliable and cost-effective, the groups plan to begin a national pilot program to test 1,000 vehicles in the first half of 1998, with the intention of full-scale implementation later in the year.

If the national survey proceeds as planned, the next priority for national transport statistics will be to describe the route traffic on Canada's highways. And, if the application of intelligent transportation system technology fulfils its promise of recognizing and recording vehicles cost-effectively, Transport Canada can look forward not just to traffic volume descriptions but also to a wealth of data that describes trips from origin to destination.

NOTES