OTTAWA, (May 13, 2005) — Passenger car drivers frustrated with the line of transport trucks clogging up the highway during rush hour may want to take a look at a new study released by Statistics Canada that states the number of trucks rolling down Canada’s roads has actually dropped in recent years.

The study — which takes an in-depth look at the competition for space on Canada’s roads through registration data and the Canadian Vehicle Survey — found that between 2000 and 2003 trucks dropped by 0.2 percent, while there were 5.5 percent more cars on the roads.

“In other words for every truck registered with a provincial or territorial government in 2000, there were 25 cars. Three years later, there were 27 cars for every registered truck,” Stats Can says. And in terms of large tractor trailers, there were 63 cars for every truck in 2003, up from 62 in 2000.

The report suggests the reason that car drivers are more likely to encounter trucks is because trucks were driven 2.5 times more kilometres on average than cars. Therefore, car drivers are more likely to see more trucks on the road than the registration counts suggest. The emergence of just-in-time freight is one specific factor for truck traffic, Stats Can adds.

“The trucking industry has become so efficient that manufacturing plants and other businesses can use them as warehouses on wheels. Parts and products are scheduled to arrive as they are needed, rather than taking up space on a warehouse floor.”

The likelihood of encountering a truck varies with the day of the week, the time of the day and the location, the study says. Trucks are relatively more “visible” than cars during weekdays, at night, and at border crossings — where for example, the congestion in truck traffic and long wait times for commercial vehicles has “already reached substantial proportions.”

Stats Can does take into account the growing usage of dedicated lanes for FAST, saying as a result, such congestion may continue to improve at border crossings.