Road freight statistics: 2011 to 2013
Road freight statistics on domestic and international activity.
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Please note: statistics in this release, back to 2011 quarter 2 (April to June) have been revised and replaced by new figures published on 22 March 2018 in Road freight statistics: July 2016 to June 2017.
On 22 March, 2018, the department published Road freight statistics: July 2016 to June 2017, which included a change to part of the methodology used to produce the estimates of the domestic aspect of road freight statistics, resulting in a downward revision in the estimated amount of goods moved and lifted by UK-registered HGVs back to 2011 quarter 2.
More details about the impact of this change can be found on the release Road freight statistics: July 2016 to June 2017. As a result of this, figures from this release have been revised and are not the most up to date.
The main focus of these releases is on domestic activity of GB registered heavy goods vehicles (HGVs), the international activity of UK registered HGVs and the UK activity of foreign registered HGVs. An additional release summarises a number of economic, environmental and safety statistics about the road freight industry.
The main results across the three releases include:
Domestic activity of GB registered HGVs
Over recent years, the trend in the amount of goods moved by road has generally been in line with manufacturing output and transport and storage output components of GDP with deviation seen in some years.
Between 2012 and 2013, the amount of goods moved by GB registered HGVs operating in the UK decreased by 7%. Over the same period, the amount of goods lifted decreased by 7% and vehicle kilometres decreased by 7%.
International activity of UK registered HGVs and UK activity of foreign registered HGVs
The amount of goods lifted by UK-registered goods vehicles travelling to or from the UK was 9.6 million tonnes in 2013, a 1% increase on 2012.
Since 2009, apart from UK-registered vehicles, Polish vehicles have lifted the largest tonnage of goods into or out of the UK (around a quarter of goods lifted by foreign registered vehicles).
The overall level of cabotage goods moved in the UK was 1.1 billion tonne kilometres in 2013, similar to that in 2012. This represented less than 1% of domestic HGV freight activity in the UK.
Road freight economic, environmental and safety statistics
The total amount of money generated (turnover) by the road freight industry in 2013 was 1% higher than in 2012.
The contribution to the UK economy of the road freight industry was 4% lower in 2013 than in 2012.
There were around 81 fatal or serious accidents involving HGVs per billion vehicle miles in 2013, this figure was lower than the rate for all vehicles (117 fatal or serious accidents per billion vehicle miles).
Background information
Between 2011 and 2012, a number of changes were made to how the three DfT road freight surveys were processed. Comparisons across years where methodological changes have occurred should be treated with caution. For more information see the methodology note on the guidance page.
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Road freight statistics
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Updates to this page
Published 19 February 2015Last updated 22 March 2018 + show all updates
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Note added for revised road freight statistics.
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First published.