Personal Use Vehicles in Canada: Fuel Consumption Profile and Comparative Analysis of the 2007 Canadian Vehicle Survey Results

The Canadian Vehicle Survey (CVS) is a voluntary, vehicle-based survey that provides quarterly and annual estimates of road vehicle activity. This includes vehicle-kilometres and passenger-kilometres as well as a number of other elements related to the trip such as sex of driver, time of day and season.

In 2007, the sample size of the CVS was increased in order to address a data gap regarding consumption of fuel for personal use. The CVS was seen as a possible solution to getting better insight into the household component of fuel consumption. By differentiating between types of vehicle use the CVS can provide estimates of fuel consumed for personal and business purposes.

The aims of this report are twofold. The first is to present a national, annual profile of vehicle fuel consumption by type of use. The second is to compare the fuel quantities produced by the CVS with other known data sources, especially those data generated by Statistics Canada. This data comparison will provide grounding for future work using this data. Explanations are put forward to account for discrepancies between the data.