Albania is still far from the levels of the European Union in terms of ownership and use of vehicles.

The data of the General Directorate of Road Transport Services show that last year Albania had about 540 thousand vehicles that circulated regularly, a figure based on the payment of the annual traffic tax. This would translate into a number of about 192 vehicles per 1000 inhabitants.

With this figure, Albania is far from the least motorized countries of the EU and the penultimate in Europe, surpassing only Turkey (150 vehicles per 1000 inhabitants). Northern Macedonia had 205 vehicles per 1,000 inhabitants. Data for Kosovo are for 2017, and this indicator for that year was less than 100.

According to Eurostat data, in 2019 Romania had 357 passenger vehicles per 1000 inhabitants, followed by Latvia with 381 vehicles per 1000 inhabitants and Hungary with 390 vehicles per 1000 inhabitants. In the EU, the countries with the highest level of motorization are Luxembourg, with 681 vehicles per 1000 inhabitants, followed by Italy with 663 vehicles and Cyprus with 645 vehicles.

If we were to calculate the number of vehicles for the entire number of active or temporarily deregistered vehicles, Albania would result in about 250 vehicles per 1000 inhabitants, still far from the lowest levels recorded in the EU. According to DPSHTRR, at the end of August in Albania there were over 711 thousand active or temporarily deregistered vehicles, of which about 569 thousand were vehicles.

According to DPSHTRR, the average age of vehicles used in Albania is relatively high. Thus, over 60% of active vehicles were produced before 2005. 28% of them were produced in the period 2005-2009, while only the remaining approximately 12% were produced after 2010.

Albania applies a system of taxation of used vehicles differentiated on the basis of fuel and that increases progressively with the age of the vehicle. However, the tax increase with the obsolescence of the vehicle does not seem to be a sufficient incentive to push more Albanians towards new vehicles. Apart from tax differentiation and exemption for new cars for up to three years, Albania does not apply direct subsidies to encourage citizens to invest in new vehicles and especially towards those with lower environmental impact, such as hybrid or electric vehicles.

In the European Union, the country with the oldest age of vehicles, according to Eurostat, is estimated Poland, where about 38% of them are older than 20 years, followed by Estonia with 31.5%. The countries with the highest percentage of new cars, with a production time of less than two years, are Ireland with about 29% of the total, followed by Luxembourg with almost 24% and Belgium with 23%.

According to other INSTAT data, in the country the highest number of vehicles in relation to the population is in Tirana (228), Durrës (217), Lezha (215), Vlora (205) and the lowest in Dibër, where there are only 120 cars per 1000 inhabitants.

(Source: Monitor)