Increased transport volume on Austrian roads in 2016
In 2016, the transport volume carried by Austrian and foreign road freight vehicles on Austrian roads amounted to 488 million tonnes, according to calculations by Statistics Austria. Therefore, it increased by 5.7 percent compared to 2015 (461.5 million tonnes). At 38.5 billion domestic tonne-kilometres, the transport performance rose by 3.1 percent last year (2015: 37.4 billion tonne-kilometres).
Compared to the previous year, the transport volume increased in all modes of transport in 2016. National transport, at 355.4 million tonnes accounted for the main part of the transport volume, and registered the highest growth with 7.2 percent (up 23.7 million tonnes). International receipt (45.4 million tonnes) and dispatch (39.5 million tonnes) rose by 3.1 percent and 2.9 percent respectively, compared to 2015. In 2016, the smallest increase was achieved by transit transport (47.7 million tonnes) with 0.7 percent.
More than three-fourths of the total transport volume (76.4% resp. 372.9 million tonnes) was performed by Austrian road freight vehicles. While national transport was carried out primarily by Austrian vehicles (98.5% and 350.2 million tonnes, respectively), the share of domestic road freight vehicles in international receipt and dispatch reached only 23.6 % (10.7 million tonnes) and 26.4% (10.4 million tonnes). With 3.2% (1.5 million tonnes) Austrian vehicles contributed only marginal to transit traffic.
In total transport performance, the share of Austrian road freight vehicles with 47 percent (18.1 billion tonne-kilometres) was lower, which could be mainly explained by long journeys of foreign vehicles in transit transport. The 11 billion tonne-kilometres in transit transport, of which 98.4% were performed by foreign vehicles, accounted for nearly a third of the total transport performance.
As in previous years, Germany was by far the most important dispatch country for goods received in Austria with a transport volume of 21 million tonnes or a transport capacity of 2.2 billion tonne kilometers in 2016. This was followed by Italy (4.4 million tonnes or 0.7 billion tkm), the Czech Republic (4.3 million tonnes or 0.4 billion tkm), Hungary (3.2 million tonnes or 0.4 billion tkm), Slovenia (3.1 million tonnes or 0.4 billion tkm), Slovakia (2.1 million tonnes or 0.4 billion tkm) and Poland (1.6 million tonnes or 0.2 billion tkm). The total transport volume of these countries in international receipt totaled 18.6 million tonnes, which was below the figure for Germany, while transport performance was slightly higher at 2.5 billion tonne kilometers.
At a transport volume of 16 million tonnes and a transport capacity of 1.9 billion tonne-kilometers, Germany was also the most important receiving country for goods shipped from Austria in road traffic. Other important destinations were Italy (5.9 million tonnes or 1 billion tkm), Hungary (3.1 million tonnes or 0.3 billion tkm), the Czech Republic (2.4 million tonnes or 0.3 billion tkm), Slovenia (2 million tonnes or 0.4 billion tkm), Switzerland and Liechtenstein (1.9 million tonnes or 0.2 billion tkm), Slovakia (1.8 million tonnes or 0.3 billion tkm) and Poland (1.4 million tonnes or 0.3 billion tkm).
As for the foreign HGVs on Austrian roads, the highest transport volume (20.3 million tonnes) was carried by vehicles registered in Germany, followed by HGVs from Poland (17.9 million tonnes), Hungary (17.4 million tonnes), Slovenia (14.7 million tonnes) and the Czech Republic (9.7 million tonnes).
However, the most domestic transport services were provided by Eastern European vehicles: Poland (4.1 bn tkm), followed by Hungary (3.1 bn tkm), Slovenia (2.8 bn tkm) and Romania (2.2 billion tkm). The transport performance of German vehicles was 1.9 billion tonne-kilometers.