A total of 35.6 million tonnes of goods was transported by road in the first quarter of 2018, according to figures released by the Central Statistics Office.
This represents an increase of 1.8% when compared with the same period in 2017.
Activity measured as weight by distance (tonne-kilometres) increased marginally by 0.4% to 2,764 million tonne-kilometres in the first quarter of 2018 when compared with the same quarter in 2017.
During the first three months of 2018, there were an estimated 113,555 goods vehicles (greater than 2 tonnes unladen weight) on the roads in Ireland, which was 7.8% higher than in the same period in 2017.
The total distance covered by road freight transport in the first quarter was 385 million kilometres.
The commodity group 'Quarry products, metal ores and peat' represented over a quarter of all tonnes carried.
The 'Delivery of goods to road works or building sites' was the largest category of freight activity by type of work carried out.
