The ABS is conducting a Fitness for Purpose review of the Survey of Motor Vehicle Use (SMVU). This review is being conducted in response to some ongoing users' concerns with the survey. This report documents users' current issues with the SMVU and is the final output from phase 1 of this review. Phase 1 involved clarifying users' issues with the survey. This document has been compiled following consultation with a range of users of the SMVU data.
The review team has identified nine issues that it will seek to address in phase 2 of this review. These are issues specific to the SMVU and they are described in section 2 of this paper. Note that resource constraints may limit which issues can be investigated and/or addressed in the short-term. Three additional issues have been discussed and determined not to be significant for a range of SMVU data users, so they will not be addressed in this review. These issues are detailed in section 3 of this document. These three issues along with the wider transport issues listed in Appendix C will be passed on to ABS staff and external organisations. These issues will then be considered and prioritised in the context of wider transport data needs.
The issues to be investigated and addressed (if feasible) fall into three broad categories:
1. Issues relating to what the SMVU is measuring, eg. vehicle kms travelled (VKT) and tonne kms travelled (TKM).
2. Issues relating to how the data is dissagreggated, eg. the vehicle type classification used and the level of geographic dissaggregation available.
3. Issues associated with the quality of the published survey estimates, eg. sampling error and non-sampling error associated with the estimates.
Phase 2 of this review will involve identifying possible options to address the issues outlined in this document. The review team will consult with SMVU data users again during phase 2 of this review.
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