Accredited official statistics

Domestic waterborne freight statistics: 2020

Updated 8 September 2021

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About this release

Domestic waterborne freight covers freight moved by water in the UK and includes traffic on inland waterways collected via an annual barge operator survey in addition to coastwise and one port traffic collected as part of the port freight series.

These figures are calculated using a different method to those presented in our annual port freight release, including freight handled on rivers and canals, and by minor ports, therefore figures are not directly comparable to the annual port freight release.

Overall trends by route type

The statistics in this publication cover freight carried on inland waters and around the coast of the United Kingdom, measured either in terms of “goods lifted” (defined as the tonnage of goods transported), or “goods moved” (defined as the tonnage of goods lifted multiplied by the distance travelled and expressed in terms of tonne kilometres).

The total amount of goods moved by water within the UK decreased by 2% to 24.7 billion tonne-kilometres (bt-k) in 2020. Goods lifted traffic also decreased, by 11%, to 86.8 million tonnes, the lowest level since the series began in 2000.

Inland waters traffic saw the largest decrease for both goods lifted and goods moved, from 2019. This traffic can be carried by barges or seagoing vessels on inland waterways. Although inland waters traffic accounts for the largest proportion of goods lifted (tonnage), the majority of tonne-kilometres moved are on coastwise routes. Inland waters traffic accounts for 5% of goods moved and declined to 1.3 billion tonne kilometres in 2020, decreasing 21% compared to last year (PORT0701).

Chart 1: Domestic waterborne freight goods moved and lifted, 2020 (PORT0701)

Note: Coastwise and one port traffic which travels on inland waterways is counted twice in the above figures (so total goods lifted is less than the sum of the 3 individual categories).

Cargo type

For goods moved, liquid bulk remains the most transported cargo type along domestic waterborne routes (46%) in 2020, followed by dry bulk (32%), which is consistent with last year. Despite the declining trend in liquid bulk since 2000 associated with the decline in North Sea oil, the majority of the liquid bulk cargo continues to come from crude oil and oil products. Dry bulk is mainly composed of aggregates extracted from the seabed. Unitised traffic (Roll-on, Roll-off and Lift-on, Lift-off) accounted for 12% of all tonne-kilometres decreasing 3 percentage points from last year. In terms of tonnes lifted, Ro-Ro (Roll-on, Roll-off) and Lo-Lo (Lift-on, Lift-off) account for a larger proportion (24%), suggesting that this cargo type doesn’t travel as far as liquid bulk and dry bulk.

Chart 2: Domestic waterborne freight goods moved by cargo type, 2020 (PORT0702)

Waterway

Of the navigable waterways, the Thames handled the most domestic traffic in the UK, accounting for over half (58%) of all goods moved by inland waterway in 2020. In terms of goods lifted, the River Thames handled around 20.9 million tonnes of freight, 50% of all total traffic on UK waterways, followed by the River Forth handling 6.5 million tonnes or 16% (Table PORT0704).

Water accounts for a relatively small share of domestic goods moved across all modes (where road dominates) - around 13% of goods moved, and 6% of goods lifted, based on data for 2019 published in Transport Statistics Great Britain.

Definitions

Inland waterways traffic:

Movement of freight on a ship or barge along one of British inland waterways, such as rivers or canals. Where coastwise or one-port traffic is handled by a port classified as being on inland waters (for example, on a river) this is also included in the inland waters within this section.

Coastwise traffic:

traffic carried around the UK coast.

One-port traffic:

traffic to and from UK offshore installations and sea dredging or dumping.

In contrast to the domestic figures in our annual port freight release, coastwise traffic between two ports is only counted in one direction, and international traffic which travels on inland waters is included.

Goods lifted:

tonnage of freight goods loaded in UK waters to be transported domestically

Goods moved:

Metric used for freight traffic. It is the tonnage of goods lifted multiplied by the distance travelled, expressed as tonne-kilometres. For foreign traffic, distance is counted to the smooth water boundary only.

Minor revisions were made which are flagged appropriately in the associated tables (revised to correct a minor table error which affected the internal traffic figure for goods lifted only). This publication was postponed but going forward DWF will go back to being published with the annual port freight publication.

For further information regarding the figures in this section, see the domestic waterborne technical note.

National Statistics

These statistics are designated as National Statistics. National Statistics are produced to high professional standards as set out in the Code of Practice for Statistics. The Code of Practice for Statistics plays an essential role in ensuring that statistics published by government inspire the public confidence through demonstrating trustworthiness and providing high-quality statistics.

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