Did you know? (December 01, 2007)

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The impact of transportation on the Canadian economy, and trucking in particular, may be underestimated because government estimates usually only include the contribution of “for hire” transportation services.

Transportation services make a far bigger contribution to Canada’s economy than the “for-hire” transportation industry alone would indicate, according to a study published by Statistics Canada.

While for-hire transportation itself accounted for 3.7% of economic output as measured by gross domestic product, when private transportation services were included, the contribution of the entire sector jumped to 6.3%. That places transportation’s contribution ahead of sev-eral major industrial groups such as re-tail trade, wholesale trade, construction and, as already noted, the huge mining, oil and gas sector. In fact, the total contribution of transportation services in the Canadian economy ranks behind only four other sectors: manufacturing; finance, insurance and real estate; commercial, professional, personal and other services; and public administration.

Understanding the contribution of private transportation is part- icularly important in having an accurate grasp of the true size and importance of the trucking sector. Truck and delivery van services dominate own-account transportation, accounting for nearly 89%.

The study also found that nationally industries spent an estimated 3.4 cents on transportation for every dollar of output. The demand in relative terms was above the national average in several sectors. For example, wholesalers spent 10.3 cents on transportation services for every dollar of output. Retailers spent 7.6 cents on transportation for every dollar of output. Both those sectors rely heavily on private transportation which accounts for 80% and 70% of their transportation needs respectively, virtually all of it related to truck and delivery van services.

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Truck News is Canada's leading trucking newspaper - news and information for trucking companies, owner/operators, truck drivers and logistics professionals working in the Canadian trucking industry.


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