Australian Road Freight Transport Industry Overview

The freight transport industry in Australia is reaching its peak, especially the road freight transport mode. However, the ship and air freight transport has also been great lately, as well as the handling and warehousing. In the last seven years, the road freight transport had revenue of about $50 billion alone and by the end of this year, it is expected to increase even more.

59% of the total demand for road freight transport in the last seven years comes from retailers, manufacturers and wholesalers, so the volume of road freight is closely linked with the general economic activity in Australia. The biggest market share of 27% belongs to the manufacturing segment, while the second biggest market share of 19% to the retailers. The retailers rely on freight transport to move the goods for their customers and most commonly require special vehicles, such as refrigerated trucks. Also, the retailers provide a similar freight transfer role to the wholesalers in industries where they can negotiate directly with the suppliers. Speaking of wholesale, the wholesalers have a 13% market share, as they act as a point of transfer between freight modes.

The demand of freight transport in the construction industry has achieved a significant decrease over the last seven years with a historically low levels of transport activity. As it is known, the demand for freight transport from the agriculture industry varies, as it depends of the growing conditions. In this segment, the road freight transport is required for moving grains and livestock and in the last seven years, it has a market share of 11%. Last and in this case the least, the mining industry with a market share of only 8%. the mining industry requires a lot more rail and sea freight transport, while the road freight is primarily used for transporting equipment.

Due to the increasing fuel costs as a consequence of the global financial crisis, the road freight industry has struggled in the past seven years. In 2008, the price of diesel was more than doubled, forcing the operators to use sea freight transport. Three years later, the road freight transport industry continued to improve its numbers and attracted many new users, resulting in an increase of 3%. In the following years, the road freight transport industry has faced greater increase.