This publication is the fifth in an annual series that uses vehicle telematics data to provide measures of traffic congestion for freight vehicles on selected routes across Australia’s five mainland state capital cities – Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth – and, for the first time, two additional routes in Hobart. The selected routes comprise the major motorways, highways and arterial roads within each city that service both passenger and freight vehicles. This release includes congestion measures for 73 separate routes. The estimates presented in this report cover calendar year 2023.

This is the second year, since the initial report in 2019, where none of Australia’s capital cities experienced major lockdowns as part of the COVID-19 pandemic, and city-wide congestion levels have more or less returned to pre-pandemic levels. City-wide freight vehicle congestion, as measured by the mean excess travel time index, increased (worsened) slightly in Perth, remained more or less unchanged in Brisbane, and declined (improved) in the Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide between 2022 and 2023. Copies of the summary measure data displayed in the report are also available here.