There were 303,761 licensed motor vehicles at the end of September, the National Statistics Office said.

The NSO said that of these, 76.4 per cent were private vehicles, while commercial vehicles accounted for 15.6 per cent.

A total of 4,152 new licences were issued in the third quarter - 3,353 of them for private vehicles.

During this quarter, the majority of new licences were issued to private vehicles within 'Class 1' (<1300 cc), accounting for 1,452 new licences, followed by vehicles in 'Class 5' (1801-2000 cc) with 528.

Newly-licensed 'new' motor vehicles amounted to 1,455, or 35 per cent of the total.

A total of 2,697 ‘used’ motor vehicles were newly-licensed during this period.

In the third quarter this year, 31 vehicles were exported. Scrapped vehicles numbered 937, of which 87.2 per cent were private vehicles, with the majority in the 'Class 1' category (<1300 cc).

Garaged vehicles amounted to 2,099 or 68.4 per cent of the total vehicles which were no longer on the road in the period under review.