Stats SA reveals plans for definitive survey of road freight volumes

STRONG EFFORTS are under way to address the dearth of road freight statistics – and Statistics SA is calling on the traditionally cagey haulage industry to co-operate more fully and disclose operational details. The organisation points out that efforts to plan for an efficient national road infrastructure to keep the economy moving are greatly hampered by the lack of official statistics on road freight volumes. “Currently, estimates of freight volumes are provided by the annual state of logistics survey for South Africa (CSIR), and these estimates are based on counts of trucks on major arteries,” Stats SA’s Vincent Parker said. In 2006, a Large Sample Survey collected information from 291 road freight companies out of a sample of 414. The sample was stratified so that all large companies (with turnover exceeding R26 million) were included, and the sampled companies accounted for 72% of the total income in the industry. Full details of freight volumes were supplied to the survey by 27% of the companies sampled but some of the details were found to be inconsistent with their financial data, and could not be included in the analysis. Stats SA is therefore reluctant to publish the results as official statistics due to the low effective response rate, said Parker. The organisation will make a further attempt to improve on the collection for the 2006 survey before publishing the full results, he said. In the meantime Stats SA has re-instated the ongoing monthly survey of land freight transport which was discontinued in 2003 and results will be published from 2009. In 2010, the Large Sample Survey of the Transport industry will be repeated, FTW was told. “Stats SA will be making efforts to engage more effectively with companies that provided incomplete or inconsistent data to the previous survey. “According to Section 17 of the Statistics Act (Act No. 6 of 1999), submissions to Stats SA are confidential. Results are published in an aggregated form only.”