Transport and infrastructure in Canada
Our listing of the primary types of transport compares the infrastructure of Canada with the average of all countries in America. Overall, the traffic routes are above average and in good condition.In terms of the length of its rail network, Canada ranks 2nd in the world with 2.04 meters per inhabitant. In total, the rail network is 77,932 kilometers long. Freight traffic on the rails most recently totaled 430.17 billion tons and kilometers traveled. Passenger traffic reached 536.00 million passenger-kilometers in 2021.
The waterways listed refer to inland traffic on rivers and canals. The number of ports includes those located on the 202,080 km of coastline. In 2020, about 6.20 million freight containers were transported.
› Airports in Canada
Back to overview: Canada
Road traffic
The network of roads and highways has a total length of 1.04 million km. For each of the country's 38.25 million inhabitants, this corresponds to 27.25 meters. This puts Canada in 17th place in the global ranking. However, it is also important to note that the country's population density is very low at around 4 inhabitants per km². In this case, disproportionately long distances generally have to be covered to reach the more remote parts of the country.With an average of 2094 traffic fatalities per year (2013 - 2019), road traffic in Canada is considered relatively safe. This corresponds to 5.7 accident fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants per year. By comparison, this figure is 12.3 in the USA and 17.0 worldwide.
In Canada, traffic drives on the right-hand side of the road, i.e. people drive in the right-hand lane and overtake on the left. Oncoming traffic comes toward you on the left side. This regulation was enforced on January 2nd, 1947. Regionally, this also applied before, now it exists for all parts of the country. Here you can also find an overview of all countries with left-hand traffic.
Canada | |||
| total | per 1 mio inhabitants | per km² | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roadways | 1,042,300 km | 27,252.45 km | 104.39 m |
| Railroads | 77,900 km | 2,037.65 km | 7.81 m |
| Waterways | 636 km | 16.63 km | 0.06 m |
| Commercial harbors | 679 | 17.75 | 0.000 |
| Airports | 234 | 6.12 | 0.023 |
North America | |||
| total | per 1 mio inhabitants | per km² | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Roadways | 7,629,500 km | 20,605.41 km | 347.07 m |
| Railroads | 371,500 km | 1,003.32 km | 16.90 m |
| Waterways | 41,600 km | 112.47 km | 1.89 m |
| Commercial harbors | 4,461 | 12.05 | 0.000 |
| Airports | 686 | 1.85 | 0.000 |
Data sources used
• Global Health Observatory Data Repository (World Health Organization)• UNCTAD
• Internation Union of Railways (UIC)
• CIA Factbook
• OECD Statistics
• Wikipedia (german)
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