New figures from the Central Statistics Office show that a total of 43.2 million tonnes of goods was transported by road in the third quarter of last year.
The CSO said this marks an increase of 8.6% when compared with the same period in 2020 and an increase of 2.7% when compared with the third quarter of 2019.
Today's figures show that activity as measured as weight by distance increased by 6.9% to 3,326 million tonne-kilometres in the third quarter of 2021 when compared with the same quarter in 2020.
There were an estimated 153,406 goods vehicles on the roads of the country in the three months from July to September - 12% higher than in the same time in 2020.
Meanwhile, the total distance covered by road freight transport in the third quarter was 455 million kilometres.
Quarry products, metal ores and peat represented 31.7% of all tonnes carried in the period under review - the largest share among the categories of commodity groups in the survey.
The commodity groups that were contributing most to vehicle kilometres were "Foodstuffs" and the miscellaneous category "Other goods", the CSO said.
