Vehicle ownership rates help gauge participation in alternate modes of transportation like walking, cycling, transit, multiple-occupant vehicle trips, and shared mobility services. Fewer personal vehicles means less space dedicated to parking, more room for housing, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, and cost savings for households.
Contextual performance measure
Metro 2050 establishes the performance measure as the total and per-capita change in the number of actively insured vehicles.
Progress
This contextual measure tracks the change in personal vehicle ownership across the region and change in vehicle ownership per capita.
Metro Vancouver’s actively insured passenger vehicles for personal use increased from 1,188,739 in 2021 to 1,298,785 in 2025, a growth of 9% based on ICBC’s public database. Within this overall growth, the shift toward low-emission vehicles was far more pronounced. Electric vehicles rose from 34,627 to 104,230 (+201%) and hybrid vehicles grew from 50,388 to 124,513 (+147%) over the same period. The combined share of electric and hybrid vehicles in the region more than doubled, increasing from 7% to 18%.
Using Statistics Canada’s population estimates data, Metro Vancouver’s residents aged 15 to 64 was 1,929,014 in 2021 and 2,156,008 in 2025 (+12%). Vehicle ownership declined slightly with vehicle ownership per capita decreased from 0.62 in 2021 to 0.60 in 2025.