Proof that the haulage industry took a hammering last year, came this week with figures from Central Statistics Office (CSO), which showed that amount of goods transported by road in 2009 fell to 148 million tonnes.
In 2008 more than 240 million tonnes was moved by road, representing a 10-year high, but that figure slumped to 148 million tonnes last year, on the back of the deepening recession.
In 2009, Irish registered goods vehicles transported a total of 148 million tonnes of goods by road.
This represents a decrease of 40 per cent on the previous year and a decrease of 9 per cent on the 1999 figure.
Activity in terms of tonne-kilometres decreased by 30 per cent from 17,289 million in 2008 to 12,069 million in 2009.
There was an increase of 18 per cent in the figure for tonne kilometres over the ten-year period from 1999 to 2009.
