Transport of goods by road
Annual data: freight carried by road by distance of journey; run of vehicles by number of axles of vehicle; goods carried by road by group of goods; goods carried by road by type of cargo; freight traffic of dangerous goods on roads; standard error and relative standard error of road freight transport survey. Quarterly data: national and international road freight transport; population, sample and respondents of road freight transport survey. | |
Estonian Classification of Economic Activities (EMTAK 2008) based on NACE Rev. 2 Standard goods classification for transport statistics (NST 2007) International Standard Codes for the Representation of the Names of Countries (ISO 3166) Nomenclature of Territorial Units for Statistics (NUTS) Classification of Estonian administrative units and settlements (EHAK) Classification of categories of dangerous goods (ADR) | |
Enterprises and individuals who own road freight vehicles | |
Dangerous goods – the classes of dangerous goods carried by road are those defined by the fifteenth revised edition of the UN Recommendations on the Transport of Dangerous Goods, United Nations, Geneva 2007. Classes are the following: explosives; gases; flammable liquids; flammable solids; substances liable to spontaneous combustion; substances which, on contact with water, emit flammable gases; oxidising substances and organic peroxides; toxic and infectious substances; radioactive material; corrosive substances; miscellaneous dangerous substances and articles. Freight turnover – measured in tonne-kilometres. One tonne-kilometre is the transport of one tonne of goods across a distance of one kilometre. Goods road motor vehicle – any single road motor vehicle designed to carry goods (e.g. a lorry), or any coupled combination of road vehicles designed to carry goods, (i.e. lorry with trailer(s), or road tractor with semi-trailer and with or without trailer). Group of goods – goods have been classified by the Standard goods classification for transport statistics (NST). Gross weight of goods – the total weight of goods carried, including packaging but excluding the tare weight of the transport unit (e.g. containers, swap bodies and pallets for containing goods). International road transport – road transport between a place of loading/embarkation or unloading/disembarkation in the reporting country and a place of loading/embarkation or unloading/disembarkation in another country. Such transport may involve transit through one or more additional countries, cabotage road transport or cross-trade road transport. Cabotage road transport is transport within a country other than the registration country, performed by a road motor vehicle registered in the reporting country. National road transport – road transport between two places (a place of loading/embarkation and a place of unloading/ disembarkation) located in the same country irrespective of the country in which the road motor vehicle is registered. It may involve transit through a second country. Uncoupling of a trailer/semi-trailer from a road motor vehicle and coupling of the trailer/semi-trailer to another road motor vehicle is considered as unloading and loading of the goods in the trailer/semi-trailer. Place of loading – the place where the goods were loaded onto a goods road motor vehicle or where the road tractor was changed. Place of unloading – the place where the goods were unloaded from a goods road motor vehicle or where the road tractor was changed. Run of vehicles – vehicle distance travelled by land in kilometres. If a part of the trip was by sea, this distance is not included in the run. Traffic by empty road vehicles – any movement of a road vehicle for which the gross-gross weight of goods carried including that of equipment such as containers, swap bodies and pallets is nil. The movement of a road vehicle carrying empty equipment such as containers, swap bodies and pallets is not considered as an empty journey. Types of cargo carried – classified according to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Codes for Types of Cargo, Packages and Packaging Materials, Recommendation 21, Geneva March 1986. The types of cargo are: liquid bulk; solid bulk; large freight container; other freight container; palletised goods; pre-slung goods; mobile, self-propelled units; other mobile units; other cargo types. | |
Road freight vehicle | |
Road freight vehicles registered in the traffic register of the Estonian Transport Administration which have a loading capacity of over 3,500 kg (categories N2 and N3) and which are not older than 25 years FRAME List of commercial vehicles which have a payload of over 3,500 kg and which are not older than 25 years. The list is generated from the traffic register of the Estonian Transport Administration and from the register of economic activities quarterly. | |
Estonia as a whole | |
Freight carried by road 2001–… Run of vehicles by number of axles of vehicle 2001–… Goods carried by road by group of goods 2008–… National and international road freight transport (quarters) 2008–… Population, sample and responses of road freight transport survey (quarters) 2008–… Goods carried by road by type of cargo 2009–… National and international road freight transport 2010–… Freight traffic of dangerous goods on roads 2011–… International freight loaded in Estonia by country 2011–… | |
Not applicable |
DIRECTLY APPLICABLE LEGAL ACTS Commission Regulation (EU) No 202/2010 of 10 March 2010 amending Regulation (EC) No 6/2003 concerning the dissemination of statistics on the carriage of goods by road Commission Regulation (EC) No 1304/2007 of 7 November 2007 amending Council Directive 95/64/EC, Council Regulation (EC) No 1172/98, Regulations (EC) No 91/2003 and (EC) No 1365/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council with respect to the establishment of NST 2007 as the unique classification for transported goods in certain transport modes Commission Regulation (EC) No 833/2007 of 16 July 2007 ending the transitional period provided for in Council Regulation (EC) No 1172/98 on statistical returns in respect of the carriage of goods by road Commission Regulation (EC) No 642/2004 of 6 April 2004 on precision requirements for data collected in accordance with Council Regulation (EC) No 1172/98 on statistical returns in respect of the carriage of goods by road Commission Regulation (EC) No 6/2003 of 30 December 2002 concerning the dissemination of statistics on the carriage of goods by road Commission Regulation (EC) No 2163/2001 of 7 November 2001 concerning the technical arrangements for data transmission for statistics on the carriage of goods by road Commission Regulation (EU) No 520/2010 of 16 June 2010 amending Regulation (EC) No 831/2002 concerning access to confidential data for scientific purposes as regards the available surveys and statistical data sources Commission Regulation (EU) No 1319/2013 of 9 December 2013 amending annexes to Regulation (EC) No 1059/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the establishment of a common classification of territorial units for statistics (NUTS) Regulation (EU) No 70/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 January 2012 on statistical returns in respect of the carriage of goods by road OTHER LEGAL ACTS Official Statistics Act OTHER AGREEMENTS Statistical Office of the European Union (Eurostat); United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE); United Nations (UN); Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD); International Transport Forum (ITF); International Road Federation (IRF); UNECE, ITF and Eurostat Common Questionnaire for Transport Statistics according to a gentlemen's agreement |
The dissemination of data collected for the purpose of producing official statistics is guided by the requirements provided for in § 32, § 34, § 35, § 38 of the Official Statistics Act. | |
The dissemination of data collected for the production of official statistics is based on the requirements laid down in §§ 34 and 35 of the Official Statistics Act. The principles for treatment of confidential data can be found here. Data points are not published if they are calculated on the basis of less than 10 motor vehicles. |
Notifications about the dissemination of statistics are published in the release calendar, which is available on the website. Every year on 1 October, the release times of the statistical database, news releases, main indicators by IMF SDDS and publications for the following year are announced in the release calendar (in the case of publications – the release month). | |
All users have been granted equal access to official statistics: dissemination dates of official statistics are announced in advance and no user category (incl. Eurostat, state authorities and mass media) is provided access to official statistics before other users. Official statistics are first published in the statistical database. If there is also a news release, it is published simultaneously with data in the statistical database. Official statistics are available on the website at 8.00 a.m. on the date announced in the release calendar. |
Not published | |
Transport statistics are also available on the following websites: https://www.stat.ee/en/find-statistics/statistics-theme/energy-and-transport/transport; https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/transport/overview; europa.eu/pol/trans; www.unece.org/transport; https://data.oecd.org/energy.htm#profile-Transport | |
Data are published in the statistical database at https://andmed.stat.ee/en/stat under the subject area “Economy / Transport / Road transport” in the following tables: TS50: National and international road freight transport TS51: Freight carried by road TS52: Run of vehicles by number of axles of vehicle TS528: Goods carried by road by group of goods TS534: Goods carried by road by type of cargo TS535: Freight traffic of dangerous goods on roads TS536: International freight loaded in Estonia by country TS54: National and international road freight transport (quarters) TS540: Population, sample and responses of road freight transport survey (quarters) | |
The dissemination of data collected for the purpose of producing official statistics is guided by the requirements provided for in § 33, § 34, § 35, § 36, § 38 of the Official Statistics Act. Access to microdata and anonymisation of microdata are regulated by Statistics Estonia’s procedure for dissemination of confidential data for scientific purposes. | |
Data serve as input for statistical activity 22029 “Transport of passengers and goods by transport enterprises”. | |
Glossary for transport statistics (prepared by the Intersecretariat Working Group on Transport Statistics – Eurostat, ITF and the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe) | |
Statistical database, table TC540: Population, sample and responses of Road Freight Transport Survey |
To assure the quality of processes and products, Statistics Estonia applies the EFQM Excellence Model, the European Statistics Code of Practice and the Quality Assurance Framework of the European Statistical System (ESS QAF). Statistics Estonia is also guided by the requirements in § 7. “Principles and quality criteria of producing official statistics” of the Official Statistics Act. | |
Statistics Estonia performs all statistical activities according to an international model (Generic Statistical Business Process Model – GSBPM). According to the GSBPM, the final phase of statistical activities is overall evaluation using information gathered in each phase or sub-process; this information can take many forms, including feedback from users, process metadata, system metrics and suggestions from employees. This information is used to prepare the evaluation report which outlines all the quality problems related to the specific statistical activity and serves as input for improvement actions. |
Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications; Estonian Transport Administration | |
Since 1996, Statistics Estonia has conducted reputation and user satisfaction surveys. All results are available on the website of Statistics Estonia in the section User surveys. | |
In compliance with the rules (regulations) |
The type of survey and the data collection methods ensure sufficient coverage and timeliness. The accuracy is compliant partially. The data quality is sufficient for the distance travelled while loaded and total tonne-kilometres, but not for tonnage, for instance. This is due to the relatively high non-response rate. | |
The error due to probability sampling is estimated and the sampling errors are published in the Statistical Database. | |
The response rates are published in the Statistical Database. |
The data are comparable with data of other European Union countries because a common methodology has been used for transport statistics. | |
The data are comparable over time since the year 2008. | |
The data on freight transport volume differ from the same data in other activities of transport statistics because the data have been collected with a sample survey and are therefore estimates. | |
The data are made internally coherent by using a common methodology in data collection and the same rules of data aggregation. |
The data revision policy and notification of corrections are described in the section Principles of dissemination of official statistics of the website of Statistics Estonia. | |
The published data may be revised if the methodology is modified, errors are discovered, new or better data become available or when the annual statistics are produced. |
SURVEY DATA The population includes around 18,000 objects. The annual sample includes 6,240 objects (1,560 per quarter, 120 per week). The sampling method is stratified simple random sampling by loading capacity of the vehicle and the activity of the vehicle’s authorised user. ADMINISTRATIVE DATA Data of the traffic register of the Estonian Transport Administration (vehicle details and authorised user), data of the of register of economic activities (the certified copies of licenses by vehicle (carriage of goods)). DATA FROM OTHER STATISTICAL ACTIVITIES Not used | |
Weekly | |
Data are collected and the submission of questionnaires is monitored through eSTAT (the web channel for electronic data submission). The questionnaires have been designed for independent completion in eSTAT and include instructions and controls. The questionnaires and information about data submission are available on the website of Statistics Estonia in the section Questionnaires. Data are collected using the weekly questionnaire “Use of cargo vehicle”. The data on licenses from the register of economic activities are received by downloading from the database at https://mtr.mkm.ee/, data from the Estonian Transport Administration are received via an FTP-server. | |
Arithmetic and qualitative controls are used in the validation process, including comparison with the data of previous periods and other surveys for aggregated data. | |
In the case of missing or unreliable data, estimate imputation based on established regulations will be used. Variables and statistical units which were not collected but which are necessary for producing output are calculated. New variables are calculated by applying arithmetic conversion to already existing variables. This may be done repeatedly; the derived variable may, in turn, be based on previously derived new variables. Weights are calculated for statistical units and used for expanding the sample survey data to the total population. Microdata are aggregated to the level necessary for analysis. This includes aggregating the data according to the classification and calculating various statistical measures. Quarterly estimates are calculated based on the data collected for a week. The collected data are converted into statistical output. This includes calculating additional indicators. | |
Not applied |
Since 2017, data are collected from enterprises through eSTAT (the web channel for electronic data submission). The data serve as input for statistical activity 22029 “Transport of passengers and goods by transport enterprises”. Since 2023, trailer data and motor vehicle registration data from the traffic register are used in data processing. |