Did you know Australia’s Highway 1 is the longest national highway in the world? The 14,500km highway that circumnavigates the continent is longer than the Trans-Siberian Highway (11,000km) and the Trans-Canada Highway (8030 km).
That’s a great stat to pull out next time your comparing notes with your international trucking mates. With that in mind, here are some other big numbers which tell the tale of Australia’s road and trucking industry in 2023.
The Aussie road network
At 823,000 kilometres, Australia has the ninth-biggest road network in the world. 56% of the network’s roads are unpaved. The two busiest inter-capital roads are the Pacific Highway between Newcastle and Brisbane (18000 vehicles per day) and the Hume Highway between Sydney and Albury (9130 vehicles per day). The busiest truck corridor is between Melbourne and Sydney, with 3,800 daily movements carrying a total of 20 million tonnes of freight annually.
Our road freight market
Australia’s road freight market is worth close to 30 billion dollars per year. In 2020/21, 177 billion tonne-kilometres were transported on the nation’s roads. In fact, the market is so big that 20% of all vehicles on Australia’s roads carry freight.
The trucking industry
There are 200,000 truck drivers in Australia, driving 115,000 articulated trucks and 373,000 heavy rigid trucks. 97% of all drivers are men, and, at 47 years, truckers have one of the oldest average ages for a profession in Australia.
Sources: Highway 1 (Australia); Two busiest inter-capital roads; Freight and trucking statistics; Registered truck statistics; Truck movements