4 Vehicle Fleet Composition Indicator
The characteristics of the vehicle fleet on our roads determines the environmental pressure that results from each kilometre of travel. Some vehicles have a greater environmental impact than others. Improving the environment performance of the vehicle fleet is one way of reducing the pressure that transport activities place on our environment.
The bulk of New Zealand's vehicle fleet presently uses petrol or diesel as fuel. The environmental impact associated with the use of these vehicles is related to the:
- volume of fuel consumed
- efficiency of the engine and
- emissions control technology present.
Vehicle weight (approximated by vehicle type) and engine size are key determinants of the fuel used while the age of the vehicle gives some indication as to the overall efficiency and the presence or absence of emissions control technology. It is also important to monitor changes in vehicle fuel type.
The Vehicle Fleet Composition indicator seeks to determine these things by describing the New Zealand Vehicle Fleet in terms of the number and proportions of different vehicle types. Where vehicle type may be categorised on the basis of:
- fuel type (petrol, diesel, LPG, CNG, electric)
- vehicle type (private passenger car or van, goods van, truck or utility, tractor, etc)
- engine size
- age.
Monitoring trends in vehicle fleet composition nationally allows assessment of national and regional policies aimed at minimising the environmental impacts of transport by encouraging greater use of more environmentally friendly vehicle types.
4.1 How to monitor
Data on the vehicles that may use New Zealand's roads is held in the Motor Vehicle Register (MVR) operated by the Transport Registry Centre of the Land Transport Safety Authority. The MVR contains details of vehicles that may be used on New Zealand roads. When a motor vehicle is entered on the MVR it is issued with a registration number (number plates) that uniquely identify that vehicle. While a vehicle on the MVR is available for use on New Zealand roads, the operator must pay a licence fee to do so. Details of licenses issued to vehicles are held in an associated system.
Within the Vehicle Licensing and Registration System the registration status of a vehicle is now recorded as 'Active', 'Cancelled' or 'Lapsed'. Active vehicles are those which are registered and for which the licensing is either current or has remained unpaid for less than 12 months. Inactive vehicles are those for which registration has been cancelled or has lapsed because the licensing fee has been unpaid for more than 12 months. It is the active fleet that should be considered when reporting the fleet size.
The vehicle fleet composition can be reported reliably at a national level, however some assumptions are required in order to identify where a vehicle is domiciled. This can be determined either on the basis of the vehicle owner details or from where the most recent warrant (or certificate) of fitness inspection was carried out.
However, defining the latter is quite complex as it involves first identifying where each of the approximately 3000 testing stations are located, selecting those located in the region of interest and then selecting only those vehicles that have been tested at those stations. It is also useful to check that the ownership details have not changed in the period between when the vehicle was last tested and the selection date. This work can only be done by the Transport Registry Centre.
4.2 What to monitor
For each vehicle, a wide range of information is available via the Transport Registry Centre. However, only a limited subset of this data is required for monitoring. These items are given in Table 1 below.
Table 1: Vehicle registration data required for monitoring
| Data | Variable name in database |
|---|---|
|
Registration status |
REGS |
|
Fuel type used |
FUEL |
|
Vehicle type |
VTYP |
|
Engine capacity |
CC rating |
|
Year of manufacture |
|
|
Owners address (physical) |
Street address town |
|
Owners address (postal) |
Postal address town |
This data can be requested from the Transport Registry Centre of the Land Transport Safety Authority.
Transport Registry Centre
LTSA
53-75 Queens Street
Private Bag
Palmerston North
http://www.ltsa.govt.nz
info@ltsa.govt.nz
It is recommended that the fleet composition by vehicle type be restricted to motorised vehicles, i.e. not including trailers, be they domestic, goods, caravans, or trailers not designed for highway use. Only seven categories of vehicle type should be considered, as presented below.
Vehicle type codes
- Two wheeled power vehicles
moped VTYP = 01
motorcycle VTYP = 11 - Passenger cars and vans VTYP = 07
- Light goods vehicles VTYP = 08 TARE <3.5 tonnes
- Medium goods vehicles VTYP = 08 3.5 < TARE < 7.5 tonnes
- Heavy goods vehicles VTYP = 08 TARE > 7.5 tonnes
- Buses VTYP = 09
- All others (except unpowered trailers)
Since passenger cars and vans comprise almost 80% of the vehicle fleet, further indicators of this composition are desirable. It is recommended that the composition of the passenger car and van vehicle fleet be disaggregated on the basis of engine size. The six categories recommended are presented below.
Categories for vehicle size
- 0-1100 cc
- 1101-1300 cc
- 1301-1600cc
- 1601-2000cc
- 2001-3000cc
- Greater than 3000cc
4.3 Reporting
The Vehicle Fleet Composition data should be reported in tabular form indicating the number of vehicles in each category as in the table below. Two tables are required: one for the total fleet (Table 2) and the other for providing a breakdown of the Passenger Cars and Vans (Table 3) which comprises 80% of the fleet. Tabular data is preferred as some cells will contain very small values that are difficult to represent in graphical form.
Table 2: Example of vehicle fleet composition data
| Vehicle type | Number of vehicles | Mean engine capacity (cc) | Mean year of construction |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Two wheel powered vehicles |
|||
|
Passenger cars and vans |
|||
|
Light goods vehicles |
|||
|
Medium goods vehicles |
|||
|
Heavy goods vehicles |
|||
|
Buses and coaches |
|||
|
Other powered |
|||
|
Total |
Table 3: Example passenger car and van fleet composition
View example passenger car and van fleet composition (large table)
If the data is being reported at a regional level an explanatory note identifying the method used to determine where the vehicle is domiciled should be included.
As is currently the case, the fuel type used in passenger cars and vans should be reported as a sub-indicator, although it is recommended that LPG and CNG vehicles be combined given the small proportions of each. Although electric vehicles make up an even smaller proportion of the fleet, the environmental impact of operation is significantly different from other fuels and should be reported separately.
4.4 Data management
As with all data, it is likely that at some future time additional data may be required to answer some policy-specific need, although the TRC maintain a historic database that could be revisited. It is recommended that the raw data files obtained from TRC be stored for future reference.
