Freight vehicle congestion in Australia’s five major cities – 2021
This publication is the third in the series that uses vehicle telematics data to provide measures of traffic congestion for freight vehicles for selected routes across Australia’s five mainland state capital cities—Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. The selected routes comprise the major motorways, highways and arterial roads within each city that service both passenger and freight vehicles. This release includes measures for 71 routes. The estimates presented in this report cover calendar year 2021, and include comparisons with 2020 traffic congestion levels.
The results show that freight vehicle congestion returned to pre-pandemic levels across all five mainland Australian capital cities in 2021, largely due to the return of commuter traffic in our cities, particularly during peak periods, following the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020. In particular, freight vehicle traffic congestion increases in 2021 were larger in Melbourne, and to a lesser extent Sydney, where lockdown-related reductions in congestion observed in 2020 were most significant. Relative to pre-COVID-19 congestion levels in 2019, freight vehicle congestion increases have been most significant in proportionate terms across Brisbane routes, even higher than experienced across Sydney and Melbourne routes. Brisbane routes also experienced the largest increases in average excess travel time variability (uncertainty) since 2019, greater than in Sydney and Melbourne. Copies of the data displayed in the report are available here and on data.gov.au.
Freight vehicle congestion in Australia’s five major cities – 2020
This publication is the second in a planned regular series that uses vehicle telematics data to provide measures of traffic congestion for freight vehicles on 53 selected routes across Australia’s five mainland state capital cities—Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. The selected routes comprise the major motorways, highways and arterial roads within each city that service both passenger and freight vehicles. The estimates presented in this report cover calendar year 2020, and includes a comparison with 2019 traffic congestion measures.
The results show that freight vehicle congestion decreased across all five mainland Australian capital cities in 2020, largely due to lower commuter activity on roads, particularly in peak periods, as a result of COVID-19 lockdowns. Whilst peak period travel times were less pronounced in 2020 across all cities, this effect was more significant in Sydney and Melbourne, because those cities had larger pre-COVID-19 traffic peaks and experienced longer lockdowns (particularly Melbourne), and less significant in other state capital cities. Copies of the data displayed in the report are available here and on data.gov.au.
Forecasting uptake of driver assistance technologies in Australia
This report uses an established modelling framework for forecasting the uptake of technologies that assist drivers and full vehicle automation in Australian light vehicles. Taking uncertainties into consideration, the report provides sensitivity analysis, based on several assumptions, to estimate the possible uptake of sales and fleet penetration till 2070. BITRE will maintain a watch on automated vehicles (AVs) as they are deployed and use the modelling framework to update its estimates when new information to inform forecasts becomes available.
- Forecasting uptake of driver assistance technologies in Australia [PDF: 7029 KB]
Archived Road Trauma Involving Heavy Vehicles—Annual Summaries
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Archived international road safety comparisons—annual
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- Monograph 6: Australia's International Road Safety Performance 1998
- Monograph 2: Australia's International Road Safety Performance 1997
- Pre-ATSB (FORS) Monograph 28: Australia's International Road Safety Performance 1996
- Pre-ATSB (FORS) Monograph 16: Australia's International Road Safety Performance
- CR 114: Trends in Road Crash Fatality Rates: International Comparisons with Australia 1970–1990 (1992)
Freight vehicle congestion in Australia’s five major cities - 2019
This publication is the first of a planned annual series that uses vehicle telematics data to provide measures of traffic congestion for freight vehicles on 53 selected routes across Australia’s five mainland state capital cities—Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. The selected routes comprise the major motorways, highways and arterial roads within each city that service both passenger and freight vehicles. The estimates presented in this report cover calendar year 2019.
The results show peaks in freight vehicle average travel times coincide with morning and evening peak commuter flows—for instance motorways tend to show morning peaks moving towards city CBDs and afternoon peaks moving away from it. Urban motorways exhibit more distinct travel time peak periods than non-motorway routes.
Archived road trauma Australia—annual summaries
Older issues of Road Trauma Australia—Annual Summaries are available below.
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Regional port catchments for road freight
This Information Sheet uses freight vehicle telematics data to illustrate the freight catchment areas of Australia’s five mainland capital city ports. The report includes maps showing a sample of private freight vehicle movements, comprising several hundred thousand journeys, to and from each port, over calendar year 2019. The maps cover the 24 hours prior to arriving at the port and 24 hours after stopping at the port. The results highlight the extensive regional influence of all five capital city ports and also reveal significant seasonal variation in the geographic extent of port-related truck movements.
Impact of COVID-19 on petrol prices in Australia
Australian retail petrol prices are primarily determined by international world oil prices and overseas refined petroleum prices, and variations in exchange rates. As a result of COVID-19 restrictions imposed around the wold, demand for crude oil and refined petroleum products decreased significantly from mid-March 2020 onwards, and led to sharp decreases in crude oil and refined product prices.
The analysis presented in this paper outlines the principal components of Australian retail petrol prices, the impact of COVID-19 on weekly petrol prices and also the typically observed time lag between international refined petroleum product prices and domestic retail petrol prices.
Freight route performance under COVID-19
This Information Sheet provides estimates of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on freight vehicle travel times for selected routes in Australian major cities in early 2020. The results show that whilst there was no significant change in freight vehicle traffic volumes over that period, freight vehicles experienced shorter and more predictable travel times on many urban freight routes, primarily due to reduced commuting trips. This helped the freight industry to maintain supply chains during the initial stages of the pandemic. The data underlying the estimates is from the BITRE freight telematics program collection, which is sourcing vehicle position data from a small number of road freight operators.