Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that, as at end-March 2019, total number of licensed motor vehicles edged down by 0.2% year-on-year to 238,725; light motorcycles (25,309) dropped by 10.2% whereas light automobiles (108,083) and heavy motorcycles (97,784) rose by 1.2% and 1.4% respectively. New registration of motor vehicles in March decreased by 12.2% year-on-year to 1,140, owing to a 16.5% decrease in heavy motorcycles (650). In the first quarter of 2019, new registration of motor vehicles declined by 25.5% year-on-year to 3,094. Number of traffic accidents went down by 2.4% year-on-year to 1,097 in March, involving 381 victims and 2 of them were killed. In the first quarter, there were 3,184 traffic accidents and 1,090 traffic casualties.
Cross-border vehicular traffic in March grew by 6.4% year-on-year to 442,779 trips. Vehicular trips passing through the Checkpoint of Cotai (128,374) increased by 7.3% while those going through the Border Gate (288,256) reduced by 1.6%; in addition, there were 23,025 trips crossing the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge. In the first quarter, cross-border vehicular traffic rose by 6.2% year-on-year to 1,273,422 trips. Commercial flights at the Macau International Airport totalled 5,927 trips in March, up by 19.1% year-on-year; trips to and from Mainland China (2,326), Thailand (628) and Taiwan (1,116) showed respective growth of 23.5%, 20.3% and 4.6%. Inbound and outbound commercial flights in the first quarter increased by 16.5% year-on-year to 17,264 trips.
Gross weight of containerized cargo by land in March rose by 43.3% year-on-year to 1,403 tonnes, of which cargo passing through the Checkpoint of Cotai went up by 45.3% to 1,340 tonnes. On the other hand, gross weight of seaborne containerized cargo dropped by 9.1% year-on-year to 13,128 tonnes, with cargo being handled at the Ká-Hó Harbour (6,073 tonnes) declining by 21.1%; seaborne laden container throughput totalled 7,472 TEU, equivalent to 5,059 containers handled, down by 4.9% and 4.5% respectively. In the first quarter, gross weight of containerized cargo by land grew by 47.3% year-on-year to 4,604 tonnes. Gross weight of seaborne containerized cargo decreased by 2.1% to 37,448 tonnes; seaborne laden container throughput went down by 4.8% year-on-year to 21,649 TEU, equivalent to 14,521 containers handled, a fall of 4.7%.
The Macau International Airport handled 3,579 tonnes of air cargo in March, a growth of 5.3% year-on-year; gross weight of inward cargo (562 tonnes) and outward cargo (2,556 tonnes) rose by 2.9% and 13.3% respectively. In the first quarter, air cargo dropped by 1.8% year-on-year to 8,647 tonnes.
As at the end of March 2019, there were 122,351 fixed-line telephone subscribers and 2,150,767 mobile phone subscribers, down by 5.8% and 7.6% respectively year-on-year. Internet subscribers rose by 6.3% to 553,293 and the duration of internet usage in March grew by 26.5% to 128 million hours. Total duration of usage amounted to 375 million hours in the first quarter, an increase of 21.3% year-on-year.