Road Transport and logistics in Australia represents 9% of Gross National Product, making it one of the largest sectors of Australian Commerce. Road transport in Australia is serviced by some 400,000 trucks from small 3.5 tonne vans in city areas up to 150 tonne road trains in the outback. Australia has developed the most efficient road transport system in the world, and certainly has the longest and heaviest trucks, particularly those working in the mining industry.

Sales Figures

Sales of new truck in recent years have been about 35,000 a year. Truck sales are divided into segments, namely:
Light Duty – up to 8.5 tonnes
Medium Duty – 8.5 to 16 tonnes
Heavy Duty – above 16 tonnes
With the road freight task growing at 4%, compounding a year, sales have been strong over the past five years and sales are expected to remain strong over the next five years. Forecasting further out is not appropriate.

The biggest growth in the market over the past five years has been the heavy duty segment – above 16 tonnes. Last year over 12,000 heavy duty trucks were sold in Australia, a large number of which were locally built/assembled.