Almost 6,000 increase in licensed vehicles in three months

National Offices of Statistics figures found that new licences issued during the third quarter of 2016 amounted to 5,669, the majority of which (71.7% of the total) were issued to passenger cars.

Following this, 981 new licences were handed to motorcycles. When compared to the figures of the third quarter of 2015, new licences granted to motorcycles marked an increase of 71.2%. Newly-licensed ‘new’ motor vehicles amounted to 2,569, or 45.3% of the total, and newly licensed ‘used’ motor vehicles totalled 3,100.

The NSO found that during this quarter, the stock of licensed vehicles has increased at an average rate of 38 vehicles per day.

According to NSO figures, the stock of licensed motor vehicles stood at 356,146 by the end of September of this year. 79% of these figures were passenger cars, 13.5% were commercial vehicles, 6.4% were motorcycles, and buses and minibuses accounted for less than one per cent, data shows.

As at the end of September this year, 60.8% of vehicles had petrol engines. Vehicles with diesel engines reached 38.7% of the total.