Home > Statistics > Goods transport by road > 2012 > Lower volume of goods transported by lorries in 2012 than in the previous year

Published: 8 May 2013

Lower volume of goods transported by lorries in 2012 than in the previous year

Measured by tonnes, six per cent less goods were transported by lorries in domestic and international transport in 2012 than in the previous year. The volume of tonne-kilometres was five per cent lower. These data derive from the statistics on goods transport by road compiled by Statistics Finland.

Domestic transport

In 2012, lorries transported 294 million tonnes of goods in domestic transport, which was six per cent less than one year before. The total length of transport journeys driven was 1.9 billion kilometres, which was 16 per cent down on 2011. The total number of tonne-kilometres was 22 billion, which was eight per cent less than in the year before. Tonne-kilometre describes the volume of transport and is obtained as a product of the transported volume of goods given in tonnes and the length of the transport journey in kilometres.

Annual volume of goods transported by lorries in domestic transport

Professional or licensed transport accounted for 84 per cent of the tonnes of all transported goods, which was two percentage points more than in the year before. The share of licensed transport was 93 per cent of all tonne-kilometres, which was one percentage point more than in the year before.

The average transport journey was 57 kilometres in 2012, which was two kilometres less than one year earlier. In laden journeys the average transport journey was 18 kilometres for soil materials and 102 kilometres for saw timber and pulpwood. The average length of empty journeys was 40 kilometres, which was two kilometres more than one year earlier.

Measured in tonnes, the most transported type of goods was soil, amounting to 112 million tonnes, or 38 per cent of all tonnes. Despite the large volume of tonnes, transport of soil materials made up only 11 per cent of the tonne-kilometres, because the average transport journey for soil materials is short. The second most transported goods were saw timber and pulpwood, making up around ten per cent of the tonnes and 14 per cent of the tonne-kilometres.

International transport

In 2012, lorries transported 5.8 million tonnes of goods in international road transport, which was ten per cent more than one year before. The transport performance totalled 3.5 million tonne-kilometres, which was 12 per cent more than in 2011.

It should be noted that the statistics on goods transport by road always monitor the transport performance of a truck tractor selected to the survey during the survey period. The truck tractor selected to the sample may have several different trailers during the survey period. Therefore, if trailers are hauled to a harbour from which they continue in sea transport without the truck tractor, the monitoring of the transport ends there.

Source: Goods Transport by Road 2012, Statistics Finland

Inquiries: Mikko Simonaho 09 1734 2789, liikenne.matkailu@stat.fi

Director in charge: Hannele Orjala

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Updated 8.5.2013