Transport satellite account

Latest release
Australian System of National Accounts: Concepts, Sources and Methods
Reference period
2020-21 financial year

23.54    The experimental Australian Transport Economic Account (ATEA) released in 2018 covered the period 2010-11 to 2015-16 and presented information on the contribution of transport activity across all industries of the Australian economy.

23.55    For the purposes of the ATEA, total transport activity is the movement of people or goods from one location to another and is comprised of:

  • For-hire transport activity, which is that activity undertaken on a fee for-hire basis in the Australian and New Zealand Standard industrial Classification, 2006 (ANZSIC) Division I - Transport, postal and warehousing. This corresponds with transport as it is viewed in the national accounts.
  • In-house transport activity within the four primary modes of transport – Road, Rail, Air and Water as defined in the ANZSIC Divisions 46 to 49.
    • The majority of this activity is own-account (or ‘ancillary’) output, which is not intended for market, and is consumed in the production of the industry’s primary output for example a retail business using its own truck to deliver goods from a warehouse to the retail outlet.
    • In-house transport in this account also encompasses any secondary production of transport activity for market, outside of Division I.
    • The In-house production of transport services in scope of the ATEA is restricted to the movement of people or freight that could potentially be outsourced to transport units in ANZSIC Division I. As such, Transport activity that cannot be disentangled from the primary production process of the unit is considered out of scope of the ATEA. However, there is no practical way to separately identify this activity, and it is likely that estimates include activity such as that of waste collection services and police and emergency services patrols.

23.56    To maintain links to the national accounts, transport services provided by households for their own use are not in scope of the ATEA.

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