Road traffic: 2024
Information on volume of traffic by type of vehicle and class of road for 2024.
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In this page
Introduction
In previous years, we’ve published a more extensive publication on road traffic data alongside updating our StatsWales dataset. Due to the data being published on the Department for Transport website, we have reduced this release to focus on the main points for Wales and will not be updating the StatsWales dataset. We welcome users’ views on this change, please contact stats.transport@gov.wales.
Main points
- Road traffic volume in Wales in 2024 increased by 1.3% compared to 2023, to 30.2 billion vehicle kilometers (bvk) but remained around 1.6% below pre-pandemic levels (30.7bvk in 2019).
- In 2024, the total volume of motorised traffic in Wales was 30.2bvk. This is equivalent to 9,544 vehicle kilometers (5,930 miles) per person.
- Most of the traffic (64.2%) was on major roads (motorways or A roads). The remaining traffic was on minor roads – i.e., B, C and unclassified roads.
- In 2024, traffic volume increased by 2.6% on major roads and there was no change on minor roads, compared with the previous year.
- Cars and taxis were the dominant category on all classes of road traffic in 2024, accounting for 23.3bvk (77.2% of motor vehicle traffic), followed by LGVs at 5.4bvk (17.9%) and HGVs at 1.1bvk (3.6%).
- Cardiff, Rhondda Cynon Taf, Swansea, Caerphilly and Carmarthenshire had the highest volumes of motor vehicle traffic. Their combined volume represented 40.5% of total traffic in Wales.
- Ceredigion, Isle of Anglesey, Blaenau Gwent and Merthyr Tydfil had the lowest volumes of motor vehicle traffic and their combined volume represented just 7.7% of total traffic in Wales.
New registrations and licensed vehicles
- In 2024 the number of new vehicle registrations was 95,000, a decrease of 3.0% (3,000) compared to 2023.
- In 2024, the number of new registrations of buses and coaches experienced the largest increase of any type of vehicle, rising from 221 new vehicles in 2023 to 635 in 2024.
- This was the highest number of new registrations of buses and coaches since 2006.
- New registrations from cars increased by 1.3%, compared to the previous year.
- Light goods vehicles saw the largest decrease by 18.8%, followed by other vehicles by 10.4%, motorcycles by 5.9%, and heavy goods vehicles by 5.2%.
How do we measure traffic volume
Traffic volume is estimated using traffic counts data collected by the Department for Transport (DfT). Data from manual traffic counts are combined with data from automatic traffic counters to calculate estimated annual average daily flows (AADF). These daily flows are combined with road lengths to calculate the number of vehicle miles travelled each year by vehicle type, road category and region. In this release, estimates are presented as billion vehicle kilometres (bvk).
More detailed information is provided in the DfT’s road traffic estimates methodology note.
