# Nigeria Road Vehicle VKT / Annual Mileage Web Research

**Date researched:** 2026-06-19  
**Scope:** Nigeria national and Lagos-specific vehicle-kilometres travelled (VKT) / average annual mileage for road transport; West Africa / developing-country benchmarks applicable to Nigeria.

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## 1. World Bank – *Assessing Low-Carbon Development in Nigeria: An Analysis of Four Sectors* (2013)

- **URL:** https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/333931468332952975/pdf/782810REPLACEM00Box377335B00Public0.pdf
- **Publisher / year:** World Bank, 2013
- **Relevant tables:** Chapter 21 (Road Transport Sector), Tables 21.4, 21.5, 21.6, 21.9
- **Summary:**
  - The report provides the most complete Nigeria bottom-up vehicle activity dataset available. Base year = 2010; fleet and activity were estimated by uplifting State Licensing Authority registration data and running a 3,000-vehicle field survey across Abuja, Kaduna, Lagos and Ondo in 2012.
  - Activities were then balanced against national fuel sales data (Table 21.10 / 21.11).

### Lagos-specific indicators (UITP/UATP 2010, re-printed as Table 21.4)

| Indicator | Private car | Public transport (large bus) | Public transport (minibus) |
|-----------|-------------|------------------------------|----------------------------|
| Fleet | 800,000 | 755 | 80,000 |
| Capacity (people/vehicle) | 5 | 80 | 30 |
| **Annual km per unit** | **4,260** | **73,920** | **72,000** |
| Average occupancy | 1.8 | 43 | 18 |
| Average speed on road network | 23 km/h (all) |
| Source | UITP/UATP (2010), reproduced in WB (2013) |

### Average annual travel per vehicle from the World Bank Nigeria Vehicle Survey 2012 (Table 21.5)

Detailed survey responses split by use category:

| Vehicle type | Private (km/yr) | Commercial – Passenger (km/yr) | Commercial – Goods (km/yr) |
|--------------|-----------------|--------------------------------|----------------------------|
| Car | 29,595 | 18,587 | 12,313 |
| Wagon | 28,921 | 33,044 | 12,233 |
| Jeep | 40,604 | — | — |
| Space bus | 33,256 | 39,167 | — |
| Sports car | 25,240 | — | — |
| SUV | 36,111 | — | — |
| Pick-up | 10,923 | 20,604 | — |
| Bus | — | 18,192 | — |
| Motorcycle | 7,659 | — | — |
| Tricycle (three-wheeler) | 24,933 | — | — |
| Minibus 10–14 passenger (urban) | — | 14,876 | — |
| Mid-bus 18–35 passenger (urban) | — | 28,743 | — |
| Big bus 50–60 passenger (urban) | — | 23,024 | — |
| Minibus 10–14 passenger (long-distance) | — | 17,451 | — |
| Mid-bus 18–35 passenger (long-distance) | — | 32,828 | — |
| Big bus 50–60 passenger (long-distance) | — | 49,313 | — |
| 3 ton canter | — | — | 25,737 |
| 5 ton canter | — | — | 29,327 |
| 15 ton canter | — | — | 34,291 |
| Heavy truck | — | — | 37,533 |
| Trailer | — | — | 42,786 |

### Final vehicle activity levels used in emissions calculations (Table 21.6)

These are the values the study used after balancing against fuel sales data:

| Vehicle type in EFFECT model | Annual km |
|------------------------------|-----------|
| Two-wheelers (motorcycles / okada) | 7,000 |
| Cars | 17,000 |
| Light commercial vehicle – goods (includes danfo minibus) | 30,000 |
| Heavy-duty vehicle – urban bus | 30,000 |
| Heavy-duty vehicle – coach | 45,000 |
| Heavy commercial vehicle – truck | 33,500 |

### National base-year fleet and total VKT (Table 21.9) – 2010

| Vehicle type | Vehicle fleet | Veh-km (millions) | Implied km/vehicle |
|--------------|--------------:|------------------:|-------------------:|
| Motorcycle | 3,322,888 | 23,260 | 7,000 |
| Car | 4,650,509 | 79,059 | 17,000 |
| Light goods vehicle | 557,301 | 16,719 | 30,000 |
| Heavy goods vehicle | 130,089 | 4,358 | 33,500 |
| Urban bus | 5,344 | 160 | 29,940 |
| Long-distance coach | 5,344 | 240 | 44,962 |
| **Total** | **8,671,474** | **123,797** | — |

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## 2. African Development Institute / AGDI Working Paper – *Road Transport Energy Consumption and Vehicular Emissions in Lagos, Nigeria* (Maduekwe, Akpan & Isihak, 2020)

- **URL:** http://www.afridev.org/RePEc/agd/agd-wpaper/Road-Transport-Energy-Consumption-and-Vehicular-Emissions-in-Lagos-Nigeria.pdf
- **Publisher / year:** African Development Bank / AGDI, 2020
- **Relevant table:** Table 2 – Mileage and Fuel Economy inputs
- **Summary:**
  - The authors built a Lagos LEAP model. They explicitly state they divided the national vehicle-distance data by fleet size from the World Bank (2013) report to obtain average annual distance per vehicle.
  - They then combined this with Lagos Bureau of Statistics 2012 vehicle-stock data.
  - Values are therefore identical to the WB 2013 national defaults repackaged for Lagos.

| Vehicle type | Average annual km per vehicle |
|--------------|------------------------------:|
| Saloon & station wagon | 17,000.07 |
| Motorcycle | 6,999.93 |
| Van & pick-up | 29,999.95 |
| Tanker, tractor, trailer, tipper | 33,500.14 |
| Lorry, truck | 33,500.14 |
| Minibus, omnibus | 29,940.12 |

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## 3. UITP/UATP – *Report on Statistical Indicators of Public Transport Performance in Africa* (2010)

- **URL:** http://www.uitp.org/knowledge/pdf/Report_on_statistical_indicators_of_publictransportperformanceinS-SA.pdf (as cited in World Bank 2013)
- **Publisher / year:** Union Internationale des Transports Publics / Union Africaine des Transports Publics, 2010
- **Relevant values:** Reproduced above in Table 21.4 of the World Bank study
- **Summary:**
  - Provides the only Lagos-specific public-transport VKT values found from a transport-industry source.
  - Private-car VKT in the UITP dataset (4,260 km/yr) is far lower than the private-car VKT in the World Bank national survey (17,000 km/yr). The reason is unclear; it may reflect a different survey methodology or only intra-urban trips captured for the Lagos public-transport comparison.

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## 4. UNESCO / UNECA – *Africa Review Report on Transport* (2009)

- **URL (landing page):** https://repository.uneca.org/handle/10855/31278
- **Publisher / year:** United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), 2009
- **Key value as cited in World Bank (2013, p. 350):**
  - Typical annual km for commercial vehicles operating in Africa: **65,000 km/yr**.
- **Summary:**
  - A continental benchmark, not Nigeria-specific. The World Bank report uses it as a cross-check, noting that the Nigeria survey produced lower activity levels for commercial vehicles than the continental norm.

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## 5. World Bank / Africa Infrastructure Country Diagnostic – *Africa's Transport Infrastructure* (2011)

- **URL:** https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/2692 (or PDF: https://ppp.worldbank.org/sites/default/files/2022-06/Africas-Transport-Infrastructure-2011.pdf)
- **Publisher / year:** World Bank, 2011
- **Relevant table:** Table 2.2 – Comparative Transport Costs, Central Africa, East Africa, and France (2007)
- **Key value:**
  - Yearly mileage (trucks): Central Africa **65,000 km/yr**; East Africa **100,000 km/yr**; France **121,000 km/yr**.
- **Summary:**
  - Another African / developing-country truck utilisation benchmark. Shows that Nigerian (West African) heavy-vehicle mileage is likely to be at the lower end of these ranges, consistent with the WB 2013 HCV-truck value of 33,500 km/yr.

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## 6. Dar es Salaam Vehicle Operating Characteristics (JICA 1990 / University of Pretoria reprint)

- **URL:** https://repository.up.ac.za/bitstreams/3a7152ba-bb4b-4254-b900-62bd3c95d95d/download
- **Publisher / year:** JICA / University of Pretoria (study of Dar es Salaam), original data from JICA (1990)
- **Relevant table:** Average distance travelled per day
- **Summary:**
  - Not Nigeria, but a Sub-Saharan African city benchmark of daily operating distance by vehicle category.

| Vehicle type | km/day | km/year (365 days) |
|--------------|-------:|-------------------:|
| Saloon car | 51.38 | ~18,754 |
| Station wagon | 111.71 | ~40,774 |
| Taxi | 92.27 | ~33,679 |
| Microbus | 176.31 | ~64,353 |
| Minibus | 188.63 | ~68,850 |
| Large bus | 227.78 | ~83,140 |
| Light goods truck | 125.48 | ~45,800 |
| Medium goods truck | 94.38 | ~34,449 |
| Heavy goods truck | 109.10 | ~39,822 |
| Motorcycle | 55.40 | ~20,221 |

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## 7. Transport Starter Data Kit – *Historical socio-transport data for Nigeria* (2023)

- **URL:** https://zenodo.org/records/10411123
- **Publisher / year:** Loughborough University / Imperial College London / SLOCAT Partnership, 2023
- **Files reviewed:** `Nigeria.pdf`, `TSDK_Nigeria.xlsx`
- **Summary:**
  - Covers 1990–2021 for passenger-km by mode, freight ton-km, vehicle stock, load factors and energy intensities.
  - Does **not** contain vehicle-kilometres (VKT) by vehicle type. It reports rail / air passenger-km and ton-km, but no road VKT.
  - Useful for fleet-size cross-checks and modal activity trends, but not a direct VKT source.

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## 8. SSATP – *Policies for Sustainable Accessibility and Mobility in Urban Areas of Nigeria* (2020)

- **URL:** https://www.ssatp.org/publication/policies-sustainable-accessibility-and-mobility-urban-areas-nigeria-policy-strategy
- **Publisher / year:** SSATP / World Bank, 2020
- **Relevant data:**
  - Nigeria vehicle population 2017: **11.5 million units** (commercial 53.8%, private 44.5%, government/diplomatic 1.7%).
  - Lagos private car ownership growing at ~7% per year.
  - Very low private-car ownership rate (~24 vehicles per 1,000 inhabitants nationally).
- **Summary:**
  - Provides useful fleet context for scaling VKT to newer years, but contains no VKT or annual mileage values.

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## 9. LAMATA / Lagos State Transport Modelling Documents

- **Source 1:** Kagho, G. O. & Axhausen, K. W. (2019). *An Agent-Based MATSim Scenario for Lagos, Nigeria*. STRC. https://www.strc.ch/2019/Kagho_Axhausen.pdf
  - Cites the **LAMATA 2012 household travel survey** (0.18% sample of Lagos population) and a 2015 estimate of **22 million trips per day** in Lagos, 40% walk.
  - Does not provide VKT by vehicle type.
- **Source 2:** Lagos Urban Transport Project ICR / World Bank.
  - Gives road network length, BRT ridership and PDO indicators measured relative to vehicle-km driven, but no disaggregated VKT table.
- **Summary:**
  - LAMATA holds travel-survey microdata, but the detailed VKT outputs are not publicly accessible.

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## 10. Nigerian Transport Master Plan / NSTMP references

- **FGN Vision 2020 National Technical Working Group on Transport (2009):** http://www.npc.gov.ng/vault/files/transport%20ntwg%20report.pdf (cited in World Bank 2013)
- **Draft National Transport Policy (2010):** https://www.nesgroup.org/download_policy_drafts/National%20Transport%20Policy%20%282010%29_1661938253.pdf
- **Revised National Integrated Infrastructure Master Plan (NIIMP) 2020–2043:** https://faolex.fao.org/docs/pdf/nig217435.pdf
- **Summary:**
  - These documents discuss policy frameworks, modal targets and infrastructure investment needs. None were found to publish a VKT or average mileage table by vehicle type.

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## 11. ICCT – *Cost and Benefits of Soot-Free Road Transport in Nigeria* (2019)

- **URL:** https://theicct.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/ICCT_Sootfree_transport_20190826.pdf
- **Publisher / year:** ICCT, 2019
- **Relevant data:**
  - Estimates Nigeria in-use vehicle stock at ~10.5 million vehicles (2019).
  - Projects vehicle stock growth at 3–5% annually.
- **Summary:**
  - Useful for fleet scaling, but ICCT’s Nigeria analysis does not publish its underlying VKT assumptions in this report.

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## 12. NBS Road Transport Data

- **URL:** https://microdata.nigerianstat.gov.ng/index.php/catalog/164
- **Publisher / year:** National Bureau of Statistics, ongoing
- **Summary:**
  - Publishes vehicle population and crash statistics by quarter/year.
  - Does not publish VKT or average annual mileage.

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## Gaps

1. **No recent measured VKT data.** The most detailed and calibrated Nigeria VKT dataset is from World Bank (2013) and is anchored to a 2010 base year and a 2012 vehicle survey. No newer public survey repeats those numbers.
2. **No national VKT monitoring programme.** NBS and FRSC collect registration and crash data, but not annual mileage or odometer readings.
3. **Lagos-specific VKT is thin.** The only directly Lagos-specific values are UITP/UATP (2010) for public transport and a low private-car value. All other Lagos modelling studies reuse the national WB 2013 values.
4. **No VKT by fuel type / technology / road type.** The existing data do not split VKT by gasoline vs diesel, urban vs rural, or paved vs unpaved road.
5. **No West Africa / ECOWAS benchmark table.** Only continental (UNECA) and broad African sub-region (AICD) benchmarks exist.
6. **Motorcycle and tricycle VKT is uncertain.** The survey value of 7,000 km/yr is a national average; Lagos okada operations may differ sharply from other states.
7. **Data access for LAMATA microdata is unclear.** The 2012 household travel survey is referenced in academic papers but the full VKT outputs are not readily available online.

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## Conclusion: Can we build a defensible Nigeria VKT table?

**Yes, but with caveats.** The World Bank (2013) study provides a transparent, fuel-sales-calibrated base-year set of values that can be used as the foundation of a Nigeria VKT table:

| Vehicle category | Suggested default annual km | Basis |
|------------------|----------------------------:|-------|
| Motorcycle / two-wheeler | 7,000 | WB 2013, balanced to fuel sales |
| Passenger car | 17,000 | WB 2013, balanced to fuel sales |
| Light commercial vehicle / danfo minibus | 30,000 | WB 2013 LCV-goods |
| Urban bus | 30,000 | WB 2013 HDV-urban bus |
| Long-distance coach | 45,000 | WB 2013 HDV-coach |
| Heavy goods vehicle / truck | 33,500 | WB 2013 HCV-truck |

**Recommended approach:**
- Use the World Bank (2013) values as primary defaults for a Nigeria national VKT table.
- For Lagos public transport, use the UITP/UATP (2010) values (large bus 73,920 km/yr, minibus 72,000 km/yr).
- For Lagos passenger cars, decide whether to use the national 17,000 km/yr default or the much lower UITP/UATP 4,260 km/yr value; document the choice because the two sources diverge significantly.
- Update fleet numbers to a recent year using NBS vehicle population or ICCT / TSDK fleet estimates, then apply the per-vehicle km defaults to estimate total VKT.
- Clearly state that the underlying activity data are 10–15 years old and were derived from a limited-sample survey balanced against fuel sales, not from a continuous odometer-based VKT system.

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**Log path:** `C:\Users\HP\palmgrove\NEFDB\docs\transport_aviation\vkt_web_research.md`