The amount of goods transported by road during the first three months of the year increased, according to recent data from the Central Statistics Office.
In the first three months of 2022, 40.8 million tonnes of products were moved by road, up 19% over the corresponding period in 2021.
It also represented an increase of 11% when compared with 2019 and pre-Covid conditions.
Dr. Nele van der Wielen, Statistician, said: “The figures show an increase in the tonnes of goods transported by road. In Q1 2022, a total of 40.8 million tonnes of goods were transported by road, which represents an increase of 19% on the Q1 2021 total, and an increase of 11% when compared with 2019 (pre-COVID-19).
Today’s CSO figures show that activity measured as weight by distance, or tonne-kilometres (tkm), reached 3,048 million tkm in the first quarter, up 7% on the same time the previous year.
The total distance covered by road freight transport in 2021 was 468 million kilometres.
The CSO said the commodity groups that contributed most to vehicle kilometres were ‘foodstuffs’ and the miscellaneous category ‘other goods’.
Delivery of goods to road works or building sites, at 16.8 million tonnes, was the largest amount of work done by goods vehicles in the three months from January to March.
This was followed by ‘delivery of goods to retail outlets’ at 5.366 million tonnes.