Truck Toll Driving Performance Index

The Federal Office for Freight Transport (BAG) is increasingly receiving requests from public and private authorities as well as the press about the truck toll data. The interest in this data is so high, as they are available very promptly and contradict the development of road freight transport and, more broadly, allow conclusions about the development of industrial production and the economic economy in Germany. In the course of the truck toll collection from digital process data, the BAG has developed a truck toll driving performance index, which indicates the course of the vehicle performance for comparable basic characteristics and largely excludes structural changes. The Truck Toll Driving Performance Index (LMF index) provides early indications on the development of road freight transport and further economic activity in Germany and will be published no later than 9 days after the end of the month. Due to its rapid availability and cyclical significance, the Federal Statistical Office (StBA) has prepared the new index as a seasonally adjusted economic indicator and has been included in its publication programme since December 2018. The LMF index is an unadjusted index value (base year 2015) based on the performance of trucks with at least four axles on federal highways. This makes it possible to hide changes caused by the extension of the toll obligation (road network and vehicles). Currently, the index represents around 75 % of the toll-paying fare. There is a cooperation between BAG and the StBA to take into account calendar and seasonal effects and to make the adjusted data more usable for economic monitoring. The results on the truck-toll mileage index (unadjusted and adjusted) can be found in the GENESIS-Online database via the table (42191-0001), in the field of economic indicators and the StBA’s economic monitor. Background information can be found in the article “Digital process data from the truck toll survey — new building block of official short-term statistics” written jointly by the StBA and the BAG in issue 6/2018 of the science magazine WISTA of the StBA. Addendum: The coronavirus crisis calls for even more up-to-date results in order to better assess the impact on road freight transport and on economic monitoring. The BAG has agreed with the Deutsche Bundesbank and the StBA to create, clean up and publish the data on the StBA’s websites until further notice. There is no blueprint worldwide for daily adjustments, so the results are experimental.