Infrastructure

Road Transport

Road Transport is the dominant mode of transport for moving goods and passenger traffic and acts as the feeder service to the rail traffic, air traffic and ports and inland waterways. Transport activities are carried out by Kerala State Road Transport Corporation and Motor Vehicles Department in the State. In Kerala, road transport industry is dominated by private service providers. The road freight services are wholly owned and operated by the private sector.

Motor Vehicle Department

Motor transport sector is an important and integral part of the state economy. Kerala has 101.71 lakh registered motor vehicles as on March 2016. For the last 2 decades it has experienced annual growth rate of above 10 per cent. The number of vehicles per 1000 population for Kerala in March 2016 is 305. According to World Development Indicators, number of vehicles per 1000 population in India is 18, China 47 and United States 507.

The growth of vehicle population in Kerala is eight per cent over the previous year. The growth of Motor Vehicles during last nine years is shown in Figure 5.1.

Figure 5.1
Growth of Motor Vehicles since last Nine years

Source: Motor Vehicles Department

The number of motor vehicles having valid registrations as on March 31, 2016 is 10,171,813 as against 94, 21,245 in the previous year. The details are in Appendix 5.7. The number of newly registered vehicles is 861,323 during 2015 -16 and the details are given in Appendix 5.8. In the case of personal vehicles, a faster growth rate has been recorded over the previous year. District wise growth of vehicle numbers in Kerala is given in Appendix 5.9. Data on number of vehicles on road needs to be developed by linking Insurance Companies and a concerted effort by Motor Vehicles Department in this regard needs to be developed. The per centage of category wise motor vehicles registered during 2015-16 is shown in Figure 5.2.

Figure 5.2
Distribution of motor vehicles registered by type during 2015-16, in per cent

Source: Motor Vehicles Department

About 2360 vehicles are added to vehicle population every day. Of this 1657 are two wheelers. The highest vehicle population was recorded in Ernakulum district with 15, 59,270 vehicles (15.37 per cent) followed by Thiruvananthapuram with 12, 90,592 (12.69 per cent). Wayanad district has the lowest number of 1, 39,151 (1.37 per cent) vehicles. Category wise growth of Motor Vehicles in Kerala since 2010 to 2016 is in Appendix 5.10. The mismatch between growth in motor vehicles and the capacity augmentation of road has resulted in increasing traffic congestion and road accidents in Kerala.