Australian Infrastructure and Transport Statistics Yearbook 2025: road chapter
Chapter 4
- Australian Infrastructure and Transport Statistics Yearbook 2025 - Download full report PDF
- Road—Yearbook 2025 (266 KB) - Download Excel file
- For information on road-related revenue and expenditure - see chapter 3 of the 2025 Yearbook
This chapter provides information on Australian roads including length, use, the vehicle fleet, and the number of vehicle licences.
- An estimated 264 billion vehicle kilometres were travelled on Australia's roads in 2024–25.
- In 2024, there were 476,000 km of paved roads in Australia.
- 20 million Australians had vehicle licences at 2024–25.
- In 2024–25, Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs) comprised 59% of new motor vehicle sales (excluding motorcycles) compared with only 33% ten years earlier.
Figure 8 shows total vehicle kilometres by vehicle type. Figure 9 shows Australia’s national road network. Total vehicle kilometres travelled fell significantly during the COVID pandemic, only surpassing their previous 2017–18 peak in 2023–24.
Figure 8 Vehicle kilometres travelled by vehicle type
Source: Table 4.2
Figure 9 Map of national road network
Source: DITRDCSA, 2022
Data on the latest national and state/territory road deaths and fatal crashes can be found on the National Road Safety Data Hub website.
Use the national road safety tracker dashboard to explore how Australia is tracking on national strategic targets for 2030, including the number of road deaths over the last 12 months, the rate of road deaths per 100,000 population and the number of serious injuries due to road incidents (data lags by approximately 3 years due to sources).
Road-related Revenue and Expenditure
Chapter 3
This chapter provides information on the Government’s total expenditures and sources of revenue for road-related activities for the Commonwealth, state and local Government (noting only expenditure is shown at the local level). A variety of sources are used for this data, including data from the Australian Tax Office, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts, BITRE estimates and State and Territory Governments.
- Road related expenditure by all government slightly increased from $33 billion in 2020-21 to $36 billion in 2021-22 (latest available year).
- $28 billion in road-related revenue was collected by all government (excluding road-related revenue from the Goods and Services Tax, Fringe Benefits Tax and the Luxury Car Tax).
Figure 1 Road-related expenditure, by level of government (constant 2021-22 prices, adjusted by CPI)
Government’s road-related expenditure over time can be seen in Figure 1. The State/Territory Government expenditure is at an all-time high in 2021-22 at 23 billion dollars. The Commonwealth’s expenditure fell to 7.7 billion dollars in 2021-22 from a record high of 9.5 billion dollars the previous year. Local government expenditure has remained relatively stable over time, with an average of 5.8 billion dollars over the past 24 years.
Figure 2 Australian Government Road-Related Revenues
Figure 2 shows road-related revenues for the Australian Government, while Figure 3 shows revenues for the States and Territories (excluding tolls). Figure 2 highlights how the Commonwealth’s main source of road-related revenue is from the net road-related petroleum excise with an average of 12.6 billion dollars over 10 years.
Figure 3 State and Territory Government Road-Related Revenues (excluding tolls)
Figure 3 illustrates that the majority of revenue for the states/territories is vehicle registration fees with an average of 8.3 billion dollars per year over 10 years and a maximum of 9.1 billion dollars in 2020-21.
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Chapter 6
This chapter provides the following information on Australian roads: road distances, road length in kilometres, licence registration transactions over different vehicle types, electric vehicles attributes and registration transactions.
A variety of sources are used for this data, including data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts, Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries (FCAI), VFACTS, BITRE estimates and State and Territory Governments.
- Australia’s total estimated paved road length was 427,000 kilometres in 2022.
- An estimated 254 billion vehicle kilometres were travelled on Australia's roads in 2022-23.
- In 2022-23, Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs) comprised 55% of new motor vehicle sales (excluding motor cycles) compared with only 28% 10 years earlier.
- In 2022, there were 33 000 electric vehicle sales in Australia, up from 17 000 the previous year.
Figure 1 Map of national road network
Figure 1 shows Australia’s national road network. The lines and dots shown here are the roads and town points that were open for traffic at December 2021.
Figure 2 Sales of electric vehicles
Figure 2 shows the sale of registered battery electric vehicles and Plug-in Hybrids over time. Fully battery electric vehicles sales increased by 93 per cent between 2021 and 2022.
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Chapter 10
This chapter provides data on Australian safety for road, aviation, rail and maritime transport types. This includes data relating to crashes, fatalities, injuries and their rates of occurrence, as well as how this can differ for different demographics, states and territories (subject to data availability).
- In 2022, 1,180 people died in road crashes in Australia, down from 1 737 in 2001.
- 34 aviation fatalities occurred in Australia in 2022.
- Road crashes caused 40 000 people in Australia to be with hospitalized injuries in 2021 up from 27 000 in 2001.
- On Australia’s railways, 13 people died and 47 were seriously injured in 2022 (excludes suspected suicide).
Figure 1 Number of fatal crashes, by transport mode
This graph shows the number of fatal crashes over time, by transport mode (with road crashes on the left axis and marine and aviation crashes on the right axis). Fatal road crashes (the number of crashes or accidents which resulted in at least one death) have been slowly trending downwards between 2010 and 2022, falling from 1 229 to 1 105, with an average of 1 112 over this period. There were 33 fatal aviation crashes in 2013 and they have remained between 14 and 23 since 2016. Marine fatal crashes have remained between 2 and 6 from 2010 to 2022.
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Road-related Revenue and Expenditure
Chapter 3
This chapter provides information on the Government's total expenditures and sources of revenue for road-related activities for the Commonwealth, state and local Government (noting only expenditure is shown at the local level). A general overview for the Commonwealth is presented first, before expenditures (Table 3.1) and revenues (Table 3.2) are broken down at state/territory level. A variety of sources are used for this data, including data from the Australian Tax Office, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts, the Commonwealth Budget, BITRE estimates and State and Territory Governments. For a more detailed breakdown, please refer to the endnotes for Chaptere 3.
- The public sector (National, state and local) spent $39 billion in roads in 2022–23.
- $31 billion in road-related revenue was collected (excluding road-related revenue from the Goods and Services Tax, Fringe Benefits Tax and the Luxury Car Tax).
Public sector road-related expenditure over time can be seen in Figuree 6.
Figure 6 Road-related expenditure, by level of government (constant 2022–23 prices, adjusted by CPI)
Figure 7 shows selected road-related revenues
Figure 7 Selected road-related revenues
Figure 8 illustrates that the majority of revenue for the states/territories is vehicle registration fees.
Figure 8 State and Territory Government Road-related revenues (excluding tolls)
Download data
- Road-related Revenue and Expenditure—Yearbook 2024 (234 KB) - Download Excel file
- Australian Infrastructure and Transport Statistics—Yearbook 2024 - Download PDF
Also see
Road-related Revenue and Expenditure
Chapter 3
This chapter provides information on the Government’s total expenditures and sources of revenue for road-related activities for the Commonwealth, state and local government (noting only expenditure is shown at the local level).
A general overview for the Commonwealth is presented first, before expenditures and revenues are broken down at state/territory level. A variety of sources are used for this data, including data from the Australian Tax Office, the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications, Sport and the Arts, the Commonwealth Budget, BITRE estimates and State and Territory Governments.
- The public sector (national, state and local) spent $44 billion on roads in 2023-24.
- $36 billion in road-related revenue was collected by all governments (excluding road-related revenue from the Goods and Services Tax, Fringe Benefits Tax and the Luxury Car Tax).
Public sector road-related expenditure over time can be seen in Figure 5.
Figure 5 Road-related expenditure, by level of Government (constant 2023-24 prices, adjusted by CPI)
Sources: ABS (2025), Consumer Price Index, Australia
ABS (2025), Government Finance Statistics, Australia
BITRE estimates
Figure 6 illustrates that the majority of revenue for the states/territories is vehicle registration fees, and Figure 7 shows how road-related excise and registration revenue has changed over time.
Figure 6 Selected road-related revenues
Sources: ATO (2025), Statistical Inquiry Service
ABS (2025), Consumer Price Index, and Taxation Revenue
Treasury (2022), Final Budget Outcomes 2021-22
State Governments and private toll-road operators
Figure 7 Road-related excise and registration revenue (2023-24 prices)
Sources: State and territory Governments, 2025
State Government reports and publications, 2025
ATO, BITRE estimates
Download data
- Road-related Revenue and Expenditure—Yearbook 2025 (153 KB) - Download Excel file
- Australian Infrastructure and Transport Statistics Yearbook 2025 - Download PDF
Also see
Chapter 4
This chapter provides information on Australian roads including length, use, the vehicle fleet, and the number of vehicle licences.
- An estimated 264 billion vehicle kilometres were travelled on Australia's roads in 2024–25.
- In 2024, there were 476,000 km of paved roads in Australia.
- 20 million Australians had vehicle licences at 2024–25.
- In 2024–25, Sports Utility Vehicles (SUVs) comprised 59% of new motor vehicle sales (excluding motorcycles) compared with only 33% ten years earlier.
Figure 8 shows total vehicle kilometres by vehicle type. Figure 9 shows Australia’s national road network. Total vehicle kilometres travelled fell significantly during the COVID pandemic, only surpassing their previous 2017–18 peak in 2023–24.
Figure 8 Vehicle kilometres travelled by vehicle type
Source: Table 4.2
Figure 9 Map of national road network
Source: DITRDCSA, 2022
Download data
- Road—Yearbook 2025 (266 KB) - Download Excel file
- Australian Infrastructure and Transport Statistics Yearbook 2025 - Download PDF
Also see
This release provides statistics relating to the number of vehicles registered for road use in Australia on 31 January 2025. The statistics encompass all vehicles that were registered with an Australian state or territory motor vehicle registry for unrestricted use on public roads, as reported by jurisdictions to the National Exchange of Vehicle and Driver Information System (NEVDIS). This is the fourth annual release of Road Vehicles Australia and replaces the ABS Motor Vehicle Census, discontinued in 2021. Relevant statistics are available on data.gov.au.