Quick Facts

Drivers and Vehicles

• There are approximately 11.2 million registered vehicles (includes passenger vehicles, motorcycles, mopeds, commercial vehicles, buses, trailers, snow vehicles, and off road vehicles), 9.1 million drivers and approximately 85,000 bus and truck companies actively operating on our highways.
• There are approximately 1.3 million commercial vehicles (of which approximately 253,000 are large trucks), 32,290 buses, and 632,500 commercially licensed bus and truck drivers registered in Ontario. Thousands more operate into Ontario from other jurisdictions.
• There are 55 driver examination centres, one commercial testing facility and 39 travel points (operated by Serco DES Inc, as DriveTest Centres).
• There are approximately 300 ServiceOntario locations across the province that provide:


• Vehicle services such as registrations, licence plate sticker renewals, transfers, abstract
• Driver services, excluding road testing (e.g., renewals, replacements, address changes)
• Knowledge tests are provided at the College Park location
• Routine health card services


• There are nine ServiceOntario locations offering Enhanced Driver's Licence services: Thunder Bay, Sault Ste. Marie, Windsor, St. Catharines, Toronto Downtown, North York, Kingston, Cornwall and Ottawa.
• Clients are encouraged to visit www.serviceontario.ca prior to visiting to confirm service offerings for individual locations.

ServiceOntario Kiosks

Kiosks
Renew your licence plate sticker, buy a driver abstract and change your address on your driver’s licence, vehicle registration, Ontario health card and your Outdoors card.

Internet Services

Some of the services available on the Ministry of Transportation website or by direct link to ServiceOntario website are:

• Change of address - Driver's Licence, vehicle registration, Health Card, Outdoors Card
• Renew your Licence Plate Sticker
• Order a Used Vehicle Information Packages
• Order Personalized Licence Plates
• Purchase an uncertified Driver Abstract or Vehicle History Abstract
• Driver's Licence validity check
• Road Test Booking
• Purchase an uncertified Plate History Abstract
• Commercial Vehicle Operator Summary – Public Abstract
• Commercial Vehicle Operator Record – Driver Abstract
• Carrier safety rating enquiry
• List of unsatisfactory/cancelled/excellent carriers.
• Traveller’s Road Information Portal (TRIP) Website, a bilingual 24 hour service offering information on road closures, incidents and restrictions, winter road conditions, construction, GTA traffic flow, COMPASS traffic cameras, service centres, carpool lots and high occupancy vehicle (HOV) lane locations, in both text and interactive map formats, on provincially maintained highways

Road User Safety

• Ontario has the safest roads in North America.
• In 2008, Ontario’s fatality rate of 0.70 per 10,000 licensed drivers is the lowest ever recorded in Ontario, and the lowest in North America.
• In 2008, the number of traffic fatalities on Ontario's roads decreased to 631; down from 765 in the previous year.
• Alcohol-related crashes account for almost a quarter of all fatalities on Ontario roads. However, Ontario has made progress over the longer term in reducing drinking and driving:
  
  
  • Ontario recorded the lowest impaired driving offence rates per 100,000 population in Canada in 2009, 47 per cent lower than the national average.
  • In 2008, the number of drinking and driving related fatalities in Ontario decreased from 204 in 2007 to 145 in 2008, a decrease of 29 per cent.
  • Ontario recorded the lowest alcohol–related fatality rate among all jurisdictions in North America in 2008.
  
  
• Ontario was the first province to make seat belts mandatory and among the first to require that children be buckled up in child car seats or booster seats.
• In 1994, Ontario became the first jurisdiction in Canada to implement a Graduated Licensing System (GLS) for novice drivers. Since graduated licensing was introduced, the fatality rate for drivers aged 16 to 19 has decreased by 48 per cent.
• In 1996, the licence renewal program for senior drivers was revised. In the last eight years (2001-2008), Ontario's fatal collision involvement rate for drivers aged 80 and over had decreased by 47 per cent compared to the eight-year period (1988-1995) before implementation of the current program.
• On September 30, 2007, Ontario implemented a new program to reduce street racing, stunt driving and extreme speeding. The OPP has indicated that there was an 11.1 per cent decrease in speed-related traffic fatalities on OPP patrolled highways in 2010, compared to the year before. This is on top of a 27.7 per cent decrease in speed-related traffic fatalities on OPP patrolled highways in 2009 compared to 2008, and a 29.4 per cent decrease in 2008, compared to 2007, the year the legislation came into effect.

Go Transit

• GO Transit carries nearly 57 million passengers annually.
• Union Station serves at least 96 per cent of GO Transit's train passengers, while about 70 per cent of all GO bus passengers travel to and from the City of Toronto.

Provincial Highways Management

• There are over 16,500 kilometres (39,000 lane km) of provincial highway. Placed end to end, Ontario's highways would span Canada twice.
• The Ministry of Transportation manages 2,720 bridges and structures, 29 remote airports and either owns and operates or provides funding for nine ferry services.
• Replacement value of Ontario's highways and bridges is approximately $60 billion.
• Annually, $1.2 trillion worth of goods are transported in Ontario, $222 billion of which pass over international bridge crossings linked to provincial highways.
• More than 90 per cent of all Ontarians reside within 10 km of the provincial highways. During the peak periods, about one third of the auto trips in Ontario use provincial highways.
• Asphalt pavement lasts an average of about 15 years before it needs resurfacing, if it's properly built and maintained.
• Bridges are thoroughly inspected every two years. Older bridges are generally rehabilitated every 20 to 30 years and completely replaced after 75 years. New bridges are designed to last at least 75 years without major rehabilitation.
• There are more than 200 COMPASS cameras in the province.

Telephone Services

The following are some of the telephone services available:

• 511 Traveller Information Service, offering 24 hour bilingual traveller information on road closures, winter road conditions and construction information on provincially maintained highways.
• ServiceOntario, Transportation Info Line for road condition, road construction and general transportation-related information (1-800-268-4686 or 416-235-4686 in the Greater Toronto Area. TTY services available 1-800-471-8929 or in the Niagara Region 905-704-2426)
• ServiceOntario, Driver and Vehicle 24 hour Information Service (1-800-387-3445 or 416-235-2999 in the Greater Toronto Area).
• Road Test Booking (1-888-570-6110 or 416-325-8580)
• Driver's licence validity check (1-900-565-6555) – Available using a touch-tone phone (there is a $2.50 fee charged to your phone bill).

On a Typical Day

• 3,000 road tests are performed
• 10,000 hits per day for Road Test Bookings
• 13,862 driver's licences are issued (including renewals)
• 437,000 vehicles use Highway 401 near Highway 400, making it one of the busiest sections of highway in North America
• GO Transit carries about 217,000 passengers