Information from the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC) indicated that total number of licensed motor vehicles as at the end of 2017 dropped by 3.6% year-on-year to 241,457, of which light motorcycles (29,352) and light automobiles (107,403) decreased by 20.7% and 3.7% respectively, whereas heavy motorcycles (96,922) rose by 3.0%. New registration of motor vehicles in the fourth quarter rose by 29.0% year-on-year to 4,975, and that for the whole year of 2017 went up by 20.6% year-on-year to 16,803 on account of an increase of 34.8% in heavy motorcycles (9,880).
There were 3,630 cases of traffic accidents in the fourth quarter of 2017 and number of victims totalled 1,167, down by 16.4% and 8.5% respectively year-on-year. For the whole year of 2017, number of traffic accidents fell by 4.1% year-on-year to 14,717 cases, resulting in 4,714 casualties and 8 of them were killed.
Cross-border vehicle traffic totalled 1,233,691 in the fourth quarter of 2017, up slightly by 0.8% year-on-year. In 2017, cross-border vehicle traffic decreased by 5.0% year-on-year to 4,818,794, with vehicle traffic through the Border Gate (72.3% of total) dropping by 9.2%. Passenger ferry movements between Macao and Mainland China and between Macao and Hong Kong went down by 4.7% year-on-year to 34,255 trips in the fourth quarter, and movements for the whole year of 2017 fell by 1.4% to 138,684 trips.
Commercial flight movements at the Macau International Airport totalled 14,505 in the fourth quarter of 2017, up by 13.0% year-on-year. For the whole year of 2017, commercial flight movements increased by 2.3% year-on-year to 54,842; flight movements to and from Mainland China and the Republic of Korea grew by 4.3% and 64.2% respectively, while those to and from Thailand and Taiwan dropped by 24.9% and 7.2% respectively. Helicopter flight movements between Macao and Mainland China and between Macao and Hong Kong went up by 5.6% year-on-year to 3,844 in the fourth quarter, and those in 2017 rose by 9.3% to 12,744.
Gross weight of containerized cargo by land and by sea in the fourth quarter of 2017 totalled 2,304 tonnes and 38,203 tonnes respectively, down by 26.7% and 15.6% year-on-year. Seaborne container throughput amounted to 35,438 TEU, equivalent to 24,439 containers handled, up by 5.3% and 5.0% respectively. For the whole year of 2017, gross weight of containerized cargo by land dropped by 33.1% year-on-year to 13,892 tonnes, of which cargo passing through the Checkpoint of Cotai (12,918 tonnes) accounted for 93.0%. Gross weight of seaborne containerized cargo also fell by 10.6% year-on-year to 160,483 tonnes in 2017, with 53.7% (86,139 tonnes) passing through the Inner Harbour; seaborne container throughput edged up by 0.3% year-on-year to 129,798 TEU, equivalent to 90,318 containers handled, up by 1.4%.
The Macau International Airport handled 10,990 tonnes of air cargo in the fourth quarter of 2017, up by 8.9% year-on-year. In 2017, air cargo increased by 14.0% year-on-year to 37,493 tonnes, with inward cargo (6,643 tonnes), outward cargo (23,356 tonnes) and transit cargo (7,494 tonnes) rising by 3.4%, 19.0% and 9.5% respectively. For the whole year of 2017, Taiwan was the major origin and destination of inward and outward air cargo, constituting 54.9% and 45.4% of the respective total; meanwhile, outward air cargo to Vietnam (2,987 tonnes) surged by 50.4% year-on-year.
As at the end of 2017, number of fixed-line telephone subscribers decreased by 5.3% year-on-year to 131,839. Number of mobile phone subscribers rose by 14.2% to 2,249,124, of which stored-value GSM card subscribers (1,505,863) accounted for 67.0%. Number of internet subscribers increased by 9.1% year-on-year to 396,596. In the fourth quarter of 2017, the cumulative duration of internet usage grew by 7.5% year-on-year to 319 million hours, and the duration of usage in 2017 reached 1.24 billion hours, up by 6.4%.