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
Assessment of road improvements in remote and regional areas
The report addresses the challenge that low traffic volumes in remote and regional areas pose to traditional cost–benefit analysis (CBA) methods to support road improvements in these areas in line with community expectations and government policy objectives. Roads in remote and regional areas are often provided at standards above what would be considered economically efficient levels under traditional CBA methods, but there is currently no clear way to make a recommendation as to an acceptable standard. This report develops ways to improve the efficiency, equity and transparency of decision-making for road funding in remote and regional areas. CBA is retained as the core appraisal tool, with the additions of social benefits, wider economic benefits and equity weights. The development of the equity weights draws on recent thinking about equity and distributive justice from literature in the disciplines of philosophy, economics and transport planning.