3 Motor vehicles, traffic and road casualties
Motor vehicles
3.1 The number of motor vehicles licensed in Scotland in 2007 was 2.6 million, 2 per cent more than the previous year, 31 per cent higher than the number in 1997 and the highest figure ever recorded. Over the longer-term, the number of vehicles licensed has increased from an estimated 0.8 million in 1962. Figure 1 shows the trends since 1975: there have been increases in almost every year.
3.2 In 2007 there were around 251,000 new vehicle registrations in Scotland, an increase of 3 per cent on 2006. It was the fourth highest figure ever recorded, 22 per cent more than in 1997 and almost three times the number (86,000) in 1962. Figure 2 shows that the number of new registrations of vehicles has risen and fallen a number of times during the period since 1975, and that it has been around a quarter of a million per year only within the last five years.
3.3 In 2007, there were 51 vehicles per 100 population in Scotland compared with 58 in Great Britain. Figure 7 shows that the number of vehicles per head of population has been rising steadily, and has been consistently lower in Scotland than in Great Britain.
Figure 2: New registrations of vehicles
3.4 The Scottish Household Survey ( SHS) shows that, in 2007, 70 per cent of households had at least one car available for private use - up from 63 per cent in 1999. 25 per cent of households had two or more cars in 2007, compared with 18 per cent in 1999. As the SHS is a sample survey, its results are subject to year-on-year fluctuations.
3.5 In 2005 (the latest data available for comparisons), around 69 per cent of households in Scotland had regular use of a car compared to 75 per cent in Great Britain as a whole.
The road network
3.6 There were almost 55,000 kilometres of public road in Scotland in 2007 with the trunk road network accounting for 6 per cent of this. Relative to the size of the population, the length of the road network is greater in Scotland than in Great Britain: in 2007, Scotland had 10.7 kilometres of road per 1,000 population; GB had only 6.8 kilometres per 1,000 population.
Figure 3: Traffic (vehicle kilometres)
Figure 4: Road accident casualties*
* figures for 2007 are provisional
Road traffic
3.7 The estimated total volume of traffic on Scotland's roads in 2007 was over 44 billion (thousand million) vehicle kilometres - 1 per cent more than the 2006 and 15 per cent more than 1997. The total volume of traffic is at its highest ever level: the estimates show increases in every one of the past ten years except from 2000, which was affected by the fuel protests.
3.8 The pattern in Scotland was similar to that for Great Britain as a whole. The total volume of traffic for Great Britain rose by 1 per cent between 2006 and 2007, and was 14 per cent higher than ten years earlier, with increases in every year (including a very slight rise in 2000).
3.9 Figure 3 shows the longer-term trends in Scotland. It is estimated that the volume of car traffic on major roads (Motorways and A roads) has more than doubled, from an estimated 9,300 million vehicle kilometres in 1975 to around 22,000 million vehicle kilometres in recent years. Figure 3 shows that the main rise was between 1983 and 1995.
3.10 Per head of population, there is less traffic on Motorways, more traffic on A roads, and less traffic on all roads taken together (including B, C and unclassified roads) in Scotland than in Great Britain.
Toll bridges
3.11 In 2007, around 23.8 million vehicles were estimated to have crossed the Forth Road Bridge (about 65,200 per day), approximately 0.5 per cent more than the previous year. The Tay Bridge had an estimated 9.0 million vehicles crossing, 2 per cent more than in the previous year. Tolls for the Skye Bridge were removed on 24 December 2004, and for the Erskine Bridge on 31 March 2006, therefore statistics on crossings are no longer available.
Road casualties
3.12 The number of road deaths in Scotland in 2007 (282) was 10 per cent less than in 2006, and the lowest figure since current records began more than 50 years ago. 2,316 people were provisionally recorded as seriously injured in road accidents in 2007, 12 per cent fewer than in 2006, and the lowest figure since records of serious injuries began in 1950. Over the past ten years, the number of people reported injured in road accidents has fallen by 29 per cent to 16,056 in 2007, the lowest number for more than 50 years. Figure 4 shows that that there have been falls in most years since 1979. Although in some years the drop appeared to be levelling off, over the longer-term the number of casualties injured in road accidents has fallen steadily.
3.13 Since 1997, the fall in the number of people killed or seriously injured in road accidents in Scotland (41 per cent) has been greater than Great Britain (34 per cent lower). The number of people killed or seriously injured per thousand population was almost the same in Scotland and Great Britain in 2007 (about 0.5 per thousand population).