Average Mileage In Ireland 2012

Today we uploaded over 140,000 DPC Compliant mileage readings via batch upload. As of Monday 20th February 2012 at 15:14 the National Mileage Register contains 6,163,878 mileage readings.

Average Mileage In Ireland 2012

Tempus Fugit so we thought it high time to update our earlier statistical article for the average mileage in Ireland by fuel type. For this post we collated readings submitted from vehicles from Jan 1st to February 20th 2012.

Here is our data in tabular format:

As always this sort of data is best viewed visually:

Discussion

Compared to our previous article we can see that in 2012 petrol cars have averaged 9,470 miles per year, significantly lower (-761 miles) than our 2010 result of 10,232 miles. Diesel cars in 2012 have averaged 13,190 miles per year, also significantly less (-419 miles) than our 2010 figure of 13,610 miles***

The 2010 and 2012 figures for petrol cars compares quite favourably with SEI figures (9,923), however, yet again we see that the figures for diesel vehicles are much lower than SEI would predict (14,799). Our previous post indicated that post 2008 diesel car data is reducing the average diesel mileage per year, this process is still in effect, this can be shown graphically:

The trend for motorists to choose diesel cars over petrol cars for taxation reasons has somewhat explained the lowering of average diesel mileage, however, it would not explain the lower average petrol figures.  We could suggest several reasons for the observed lowering of average mileage, but there is one factor that we might all agree on.

The ongoing recession certainly has changed our attitudes to motoring, its very possible that we are simply driving less for financial reasons……Pecuniae obediunt omnia.

Statistical Notes

*The data presented here derives from a snapshot of car mileage data derived primarily from privately taxed vehicles and is only valid for the period of Feb 2012.

**Before 2005 only a minority of Irish vehicles displayed their odometers in kilometers, thus producing a much smaller sample. In the interests of statistical consistency this data has been omitted.

***For simplicity we assumed that most Irish vehicles are initially registered from Jan-March and that readings taken in Jan/Feb 2012 represent an incremental years worth of mileage. Any variance in results due to this assumption should decrease as vehicles get older..