How many trucks and delivery vans are there in the Netherlands, and how many kilometres do they travel on public roads?

Answer

On January 1st 2019, there were over 143,000 trucks (box trucks and tractor-trailer combinations) and 914,000 delivery vans with a Dutch registration plate [9]. In 2018, the number of kilometres they drove on Dutch roads amounted to 6.5 billion for trucks and 17.6 billion for delivery vans (Table 1). The figures show that cars outnumber trucks and delivery vans but that, in the Netherlands, trucks and delivery vans travel more kilometres per vehicle: trucks (box trucks and tractor-trailer combinations) travel 3.7 times and delivery vans 1.6 times more kilometres than cars. The number of kilometres travelled on Dutch roads by Dutch and foreign trucks and delivery vans was respectively 7.4 and 18.4 in 2018. The number of foreign trucks and delivery vans in the Netherlands is unknown.

Type of vehicle

Number of Dutch vehicles in January 2019 [9]

Number of kilometres travelled in 2018 [10]

 

 

Dutch vehicles

Foreign vehicles

Total

Box truck

62,963

2,028

148

2,176

Tractor (for semitrailer or centre axle trailer)

80,078

4,467

750

5,218

Semitrailer

164,012

 

 

 

Centre axle trailer

1,008,731

 

 

 

Delivery van

914,766

17,639

773

18,412

Car

8,530,584

104,736

5,449

110,185

Table 1. Number of vehicles with a Dutch registration plate and number of kilometres travelled in the Netherlands, by vehicle type. Note: the number of kilometres travelled are preliminary data for 2018.

There are no data about the number of kilometres travelled by road type. However, the regulations say that Longer and Heavier Truck combinations (LHT) are not allowed to drive on all roads: they are only allowed on the main road network and on designated roads. Thus, they can never drive on roads with maximum speeds of 30km/h or lower.

Connekt [11] has studied the use of delivery vans in the Netherlands. The study showed that 2.6% to 4.6% of the kilometres travelled were in aid of home deliveries of internet orders. E-commerce sales were shown to increase by 15 to 20% annually. This increase is reflected in the number of delivery van kilometres, but its impact on the total number of delivery van kilometres is limited since these e-commerce-related kilometres are only a small part of the total number.

Part of fact sheet

Trucks and delivery vans

From 2009 to 2018, an annual average of 80 road deaths were attributable to crashes with trucks and 67 road deaths to crashes with delivery… Meer

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