In 2023, a total of 165.2 million tonnes of goods were transported by road, compared with 164.3 million tonnes in 2022.
In October, November, and December (Q4) 2023, a total of 37.1 million tonnes of goods were transported by road, compared with 39.2 million tonnes carried in Q4 2022.
The commodity group Quarry Products, Metal Ores & Peat represented nearly a third (28%) of all tonnes carried by road in 2023.
In 2023, the total distance covered by road freight transport was 1.8 billion kilometres, which was the same as that recorded in 2022.
| Road freight activity, 2019-2023 | ||||||
| 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | % change 2022 - 2023 | |
| Tonne-km (million) | 12,403 | 11,383 | 12,485 | 12,384 | 12,596 | 2% |
| Tonnes carried (thousand) | 159,414 | 140,998 | 154,900 | 164,258 | 165,165 | 1% |
| Vehicle kilometres (million) | 1,734 | 1,488 | 1,685 | 1,788 | 1,823 | 2% |
| Laden journeys (thousand) | 14,480 | 11,775 | 13,092 | 13,814 | 14,759 | 7% |
Figure 1 shows that in 2023, a total of 165,165 thousand tonnes of goods were transported by road. This represents an increase of 1% on the 2022 total, a rise of 7% on the 2021 total and a growth of 4% when compared with 2019.
The commodity groups that were contributing most to vehicle kilometres were Foodstuffs and the miscellaneous category Other Goods.
Goods vehicles involved in the Delivery of Goods to Road Works or Building Sites carried 64,817 thousand tonnes in 2023, which was the highest among all types of work carried out by goods vehicles.
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Statistician's Comment
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (04 July 2024) published results from the Road Freight Transport Survey for Quarter 4 and Year 2023.
Commenting on the annual figures, Damien Lenihan, Statistician in the Transport Division, said: “The figures show a slight increase of 1% in the tonnes of goods transported by road. In 2023, a total of 165.2 million tonnes of goods were transported by road, which represented an increase of 1% on the 2022 total, and an increase of 4% when compared with 2019 (See Table 1B).
Activity measured as weight by distance, or tonne-kilometres (tkm), reached 12.6 billion tkm in 2023.
The total distance covered by road freight transport in 2023 was 1.8 billion kilometres, the same as that recorded in 2022. The commodity groups that were contributing most to vehicle kilometres were Foodstuffs and the miscellaneous category Other Goods (See Table 2)."