Our figure of the month 10/2019: Busy at the borders

30.09.2019

Truck traffic continues to increase

Every year, more than 40 million trucks cross Germany's borders on motorways. Since last year, border crossings on federal highways have also been recorded, so that the total number of motor vehicles entering and leaving the country (annual total 2018) amounts to more than 52 million. The number of border crossings by toll vehicles has been increasing for years - only on motorways by more than 8% between 2016 and 2018. But how are border crossings distributed spatially? The largest truck-traffic volume (including on federal highways) is at the border with the Netherlands, with over 16.6 million vehicles (32%), followed by the borders with Austria and Poland. Czech borders are crossed by 9% of the vehicles entering and leaving the country. Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Switzerland and Denmark each account for less than 5%.

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The border crossings A40 at Straelen (Dutch border), A12 at Frankfurt/Oder (Polish border) and A3 at Stuben (Austrian border) have the highest number of vehicles. In 2018 alone, 1.9 million respectively 1.8 million and 1.6 million vehicles crossed Germany's borders. The spatial pattern of the arriving and departing trucks indicates the predominant transit axes east-west and south-east west. However, these figures do not take into account the place of loading and unloading or the weight, so that the routes and transport performance are not reflected. A total of 726 million tolled journeys were registered in Germany in 2018.

Other figures can be found here.

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