Transport and environment 2015

This report contains statistics and indicators for the transport sector that show the relationships between the environment and transport. Norwegian data are compared to international data.

By the end of 2014, the vehicle fleet in Norway had increased to almost 3.8 million, of which over 2.5 million were passenger cars. In 2012, there were 480 passenger cars per 1 000 inhabitants in Norway. In Italy there were 610, the highest in Europe. By the end of 2014, diesel passenger cars made up 46 per cent of the total number of passenger cars in Norway. At the end of 2014, gasoline driven passenger cars had an average age of 14 years and diesel cars only 7 years. A total of 144 385 passenger cars and vans were scrapped in 2014. The average age of scrapped passenger cars was 18.5 years.

In 2014 the Norwegian vehicle fleet of electric cars was 38 650 vehicles. The growth from 2013 was 117.5 per cent.

In 2013, the total transport demand of passenger cars in Norway was 61.1 billion passenger kilometres. This is twelve times higher than in 1960. The air traffic in Norway has increased by 11 per cent since 2007 and was 4.9 billion passenger kilometres in 2013.

72 per cent of the total transport demand in EU-28 is by passenger cars. The total transport demand of passenger cars in EU-28 was 4613 billion passenger kilometre. This is a decrease by almost 2 per cent from 2011 and the lowest passenger kilometre registered since 2005.

From 1991, prices of all types of passenger transport in Norway have increased more than the increase in the consumer price index. The taxes account for about 60 per cent of the price of gasoline.

Transportation accounts for about a third of total energy consumption in Europe. In 2014 energy consumption in Norway related to domestic transport activities was 203 petajoule (PJ), a reduction by 2 per cent from 2013. If energy consumption by ocean transport and international air traffic is included, the energy consumption related to transport activities was 240 PJ in 2014, a reduction by 3 percent from the previous year. Both in Europe and in Norway, road transport makes up the by far largest share of total energy use for transportation purposes. Consumption of biofuel is increasing in Norway.

Road traffic is by far the most important source of transport emissions of greenhouse gases. In Norway the emissions from road traffic increased by 0.7 per cent from 2013 to 2014 reaching a level of 10.1 million tonnes of CO2 equivalents. In 2014, road traffic accounted for almost 62 per cent of total greenhouse gas emissions from mobile sources and 19 per cent of total Norwegian greenhouse gas emissions.

Road traffic is the most important source of noise annoyance in Norway.

Of a total of 556 incidents of immediate pollution in 2014, 85 events were related to ships and 96 were related to transport activities based on land.

In 2014, the length of public roads in Norway was 94 057 km. The length of railways in Norway is a little over 4 000 km. Expansion of transport infrastructure might cause a threat to biodiversity. All Norwegian counties have non-fragmented areas larges than 3 km2, but the national average size of the fragmented areas have declined by 5 per cent in 2014. During the season 2013/2014, about 5 850 deer were killed by car or train in Norway.

The number of registered snow scooters and four-wheeled moto cycles in Norway is increasing. New dispensations for motor traffic on uncultivated areas decreased from 2012 to 2014. The share of granted applications is 96 per cent. In 2014, the number of old, still valid, dispensations was 20 per cent higher than in 2012.