Road vehicles dominate passenger travel and freight traffic. However, prior to the Canadian Vehicle Survey (CVS), no measures of total vehicle-kilometres or passenger-kilometres were available. The CVS was developed at the request of Transport Canada to fill this data gap. The survey provides quarterly and annual estimates of the amount of road travel, broken down by types of vehicles and characteristics, such as age and sex of driver, time of day and season. The results are the prime source of road vehicle use information for researchers and interested members of the public.

Prior to 2004, the survey was sponsored by Transport Canada. Since then, the survey has been co-sponsored by Transport Canada and Natural Resources Canada. They plan to combine the survey data with other data to improve road safety, monitor fuel consumption and deal with the impact of vehicle usage on the environment.

This document describes concepts, employed methods and discusses data quality. The reference period for all the information presented in this document is the fourth quarter of 2005.