Vehicle Registrations

Detailed information for 2022

Status:

Active

Frequency:

Annual

Record number:

2747

This release provides an annual average on the number of active vehicle registration counts of light-duty road motor vehicles by vehicle type and by fuel type, medium-duty vehicles by vehicle type and by fuel type, heavy-duty vehicles, buses, and motorcycles and mopeds. Data are obtained from administrative files provides by the provincial and territorial governments.

Data release - November 2, 2023

Description

This annual release presents a snapshot on the number of active registration counts of light-duty road motor vehicles, medium and heavy-duty vehicles, buses, motorcycles and mopeds, which are obtained from the provincial and territorial governments. The light and medium-duty vehicles provide a further breakdown into vehicle type and fuel type. This information is also used by various levels of government for the planning and development of transportation infrastructure, environmental policies and by special interest groups that may use it for statistical purposes and policy planning.

Statistical activity

This statistical activity serves as a complement 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.

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 program is a census.

The annual vehicle registration counts are derived from an average number based on the data files received during the year.

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

Data sources

Data are extracted from administrative files from provincial and territorial road vehicle registration files and aggregated to estimated domains.

Follow-up by email or by phone as a reminder are used (when needed).

Registered vehicle counts are processed, data are analyzed for erroneous figures and data confidentiality analysis is conducted to ensure confidentiality remains in the dataset.

Error detection

The transmission of the files from the provincial and territorial jurisdictions represent a potential source of error. These errors are controlled by verifying record counts using a vehicle identification number decoder and edits are applied to data records during integration. Data validation is performed to identify potential errors based on year-over-year changes in key variables, totals, and ratios that exceed tolerance thresholds, as well as identify problems in the consistency of collected data.

During processing, the raw data provided by the jurisdictions is trimmed to remove duplicates. As well, expired vehicle registrations are systematically removed. These registration counts are then analyzed in order to identify abnormalities.

Imputation

This methodology does not apply.

Estimation

The annual registered vehicle count is an average snapshot of multiple data files provided for the reference period.

Quality evaluation

The aggregated program results are analyzed before dissemination. This includes a review of the events in the jurisdictions that could have impacted the data 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.

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.

Errors can also be made indifferences in the interpretations of questions and mistakes in recording, coding and processing data. To the maximum extent possible, these errors are minimized through verification of the data. Prior to release, results are analyzed for comparability; in general, this includes a detailed review of provincial responses, general economic conditions, coherence with results from related economic indicators, historical trends, and information from other external sources (e.g. associations, trade publications or newspaper articles).

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