Freight statistics in Norway. Current shortcomings and suggested improvements

Norwegian freight statistics suffer from several shortcomings. The consistency between modes is weak, and the information on domestic origin-destination flows is quite deficient. Paradoxically, there is more information available on international than on national freight flows. A feasibility study for a simplified commodity flow survey is therefore recommended. Other recommendations include the expansion of the port statistics into a data base on origin-destination freight flows, and the collection of electronic shipment data from the four most important forwarders operating in Norway. The latter procedure will provide useful information on terminal use, as well as on intra-urban transports that are not covered by today’s statistics. Finally, the annual road freight survey made by Statistics Norway needs to be improved, so as to also include cabotage (foreign vehicles carrying load in Norway) and the transport performed by vehicles lighter than 3.5 tons. Information is needed on the whole chain of transports involved, not only on the individual leg. An improvement in this respect could be obtained if carriers were asked at which type of terminal the goods are picked up and delivered.