SOUTHFIELD, Mich. — Second quarter new vehicle registrations showed slight improvement from the previous period in 2009, but year-end totals are still likely to be less than first thought, according to Polk Commercial Vehicle Solutions.

The truck manufacturing accounting firm reduced its Index of Commercial Vehicle Activity for the 2009 calendar year.

Following the first quarter results, Polk predicted registrations for 2009 would be about 367,500 units, but lowered that expectation to 332,000 after analyzing the numbers from the second quarter. To achieve the original forecast , conditions in the commercial truck market will have to improve during the latter half of the year, says Polk.

Meanwhile, the report says new vehicle registrations actually increased in the second quarter to 85,000 units, versus 73,300 for the first quarter of 2009.

Polk says these low levels have not been seen since 1991, when new registrations totaled 326,800 units.

Since Polk has been collecting data on new registrations, there has never been a two-month consecutive period where levels have been under 25,000 units, as it was this May and June.

While all the manufacturers were down when comparing their year-to-date registrations, International posted the least significant decline, says Polk, with registrations down 17.5 percent year to date.

While the new commercial vehicle market did not fare well, the used commercial vehicle market saw an increase of 33.1 percent in the second quarter of 2009, when compared to the 2008 period.

— with files from Truckinginfo.com