Passengers
Chapter 5
This chapter provides information on passenger transport activity, including nationally, by city pair, by capital city and by method of travel to work. The data in this chapter comes from a variety of sources, being from BITRE's estimates, the ABS' Census Basic Community Profiles Series and from Tourism Research Australia.
- 163 billion passenger kilometres were travelled by car on capital city roads in 2023–24, returning to pre COVID pandemic levels of 2018–19.
- 15 billion passenger kilometres were travelled on heavy rail networks in 2023–24.
- 18 billion passenger kilometres were travelled on heavy rail in 2018–19, prior to any COVID impacts.
Passenger transport activity (Figure 11) is measured by passenger kilometres (the number of kilometres travelled by passenger vehicles multiplied by the number of occupants in the vehicle).
Figure 11 Total national motorised passenger travel, by transport mode
The Australian domestic passenger task is dominated by road transport, mainly passenger cars (Figure 12, right axis). Passenger travel on other modes has generally been increasing, albeit with a dip over the pandemic period. Air travel expectedly fell most significantly, however in 2023–24 it had recovered to near its pre-pandemic level.
Figure 12 Australian domestic passenger task, by mode of transport
