Road Motor Vehicles - Registration

Detailed information for 2010

This annual release provides counts of vehicle registrations by vehicle type (light, heavy), buses, motorcycles, trailers and off-road vehicles such as construction or farm vehicles.

Data release - June 21, 2013

• Description
• Data sources and methodology
• Data accuracy

Description

This annual release presents counts of light vehicles, heavy vehicles (trucks), buses, trailers and off-road vehicles registrations obtained from the provincial and territorial governments. These data are used by the federal Department of Finance for the calculation of fiscal equalization payments to the provinces pursuant to the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, 1987. This information is also used by various levels of government for the planning and development of transportation infrastructure and by special interest groups for production and marketing strategies.

In 2010, there is a break in the series due to a change in methods used for classifying vehicles. Prior to 2010, vehicles were assigned to vehicle type categories based solely on the information available from the provincial and territorial vehicle registration files. However, the information in these files was limited and not always consistent between jurisdictions, with the result that the vehicle type could not always be assigned accurately.

Beginning in 2010, the primary method for assigning vehicle type is to systematically decode the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN), obtaining information about the vehicle that allows the vehicle type to be assigned accurately in the vast majority of cases. In cases where the VIN decoder does not provide sufficient information, the registration files are used.

At the national level, the main impact of this change in method is a net increase in the number of heavy trucks (those weighing 15 tonnes and more) and a net decrease in the number of medium trucks (those weighing from 4.5 tonnes to less than 15 tonnes). The impacts vary considerably by province and territory.

Statistical activity

This statistical activity is part of a set of surveys measuring various aspects of activities related to the movement of people and goods. These surveys are grouped as follows:

Transportation by air includes records related to the movement of aircraft, passengers and cargo by air for both Canadian and foreign air carriers operating in Canada as well as the financial and operating characteristics of Canadian air carriers. These data are produced by the Aviation Statistics Centre.

Transportation by rail includes records relating to rail transportation in Canada, and between the United States and Canada.

Transportation by road includes records relating to all road transport in Canada. In addition to surveying carriers and owners of registered motor vehicles, certain programs rely on aggregation of provincial and territorial administrative records.

Reference period: Calendar year

Collection period: Quarterly

Subjects

• Transportation
• Transportation by road

Data sources and methodology

Target population

The target population consists of active light, medium and heavy-duty vehicles, buses, motorcycles and mopeds registered in each province and territory in Canada.

Instrument design

This methodology does not apply.

Sampling

This survey is a census.

Data are collected for all units of the target population, therefore, no sampling is done.

Data sources

Responding to this survey is mandatory.

Data are extracted from administrative files.

The data are derived from administrative records extracted from provincial and territorial road vehicle registration files.

Motorcycles and mopeds, trailers, off road vehicles, buses, light vehicles weighing less then 4,500 kg, trucks weighing between 4,500 kg and 15,000 kg and trucks weighing more than 15,000 kg are identified.

Bus and off-road vehicle definitions are based on the Canadian Vehicle Survey requirements.

Error detection

All records, which expired during the month prior to the file creation month or expired earlier are removed as well as provincial duplicates (the most recent transactions are kept).

Imputation

This methodology does not apply.

Estimation

This methodology type does not apply to this statistical program.

Quality evaluation

The aggregated survey results are analyzed before dissemination. In general, this includes a review of general economic conditions as well as historic trends and comparisons with other data sources.

Disclosure control

Statistics Canada is prohibited by law from releasing any information it collects which could identify any person, business, or organization, unless consent has been given by the respondent or as permitted by the Statistics Act. Various confidentiality rules are applied to all data that are released or published to prevent the publication or disclosure of any information deemed confidential.

If necessary, data are suppressed to prevent direct or residual disclosure of identifiable data. Data for a specific industry or variable may be suppressed (along with that of a second industry or variable) if the number of enterprises in the population is too low.

Revisions and seasonal adjustment

Annual estimates are provided for the reference year. The data for the previous reference year are revised if necessary. As this is an annual program, seasonal adjustments are not applicable.

Data accuracy

While considerable effort is made to ensure high standards throughout all stages of collection and processing, the resulting counts are inevitably subject to a certain degree of error. For example, the transmission of the files from the provincial and territorial jurisdictions is one potential source of error. These are controlled by verifying record counts and record layouts. Errors can also be made in processing the data. The raw data provided by the jurisdictions is trimmed of duplicate and unusable data. These trim counts are analyzed in order to identify abnormalities.