Accredited official statistics

Provisional International road freight statistics: October 2022 to September 2023

Published 14 March 2024

About this release

These are accredited official statistics and were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation in December 2016. Accredited official statistics are called National Statistics in the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007. For more information, see the ‘about these statistics’ section.

This statistical release summarises the latest statistics on the activity of UK-registered Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs) operating internationally between October 2022 and September 2023.

The information is derived from surveys of businesses that operate road goods vehicles. It covers the amount and type of goods carried by UK-registered HGVs, as well as their origin and destination and the distance they travelled.

Provisional status

The statistics in this publication are provisional, with revised statistics due to be published in Summer 2024.

Data from the separate Road Goods Travelling to Europe (RoRo) statistical publication is used to weight the surveys of businesses that operate international road goods vehicles, which inform this publication. 

The Road Goods Travelling to Europe statistical series is currently undergoing a quality review due to a potential supplier data issue. The outcome of this review will impact the provisional statistics in this publication. Although figures will change following the review, the effect on this statistical series is expected to be relatively small.

Note: Due to rounding, totals may not appear to equal the sum of their parts.

Definitions

HGV: a vehicle with a gross vehicle weight of more than 3.5 tonnes. The gross vehicle weight of the vehicle plus the maximum possible weight of goods that can be carried.

Quarter: a calendar year quarter.  In this publication, quarter 1 refers to January to March, quarter 2 refers to April to June, quarter 3 refers to July to September, and quarter 4 refers to October to December.

Goods lifted: the weight of goods carried, measured in tonnes. This is a measure of the total amount of goods transported internationally by UK-registered HGVs.

Goods moved: the weight of goods carried, multiplied by the distance hauled, measured in tonne kilometres. This is a measure of the overall activity of UK-registered HGVs, accounting for both the distance travelled by each vehicle and the weight of its load.

Headline figures

In the 12-month period ending September 2023,

6.1 million tonnes

of goods were lifted by UK-registered HGVs operating internationally, a decrease of 4% compared to previous 12-month period ending September 2022.

Infographic 1: Total amount of goods lifted internationally by UK-registered HGVs in the 12-month period ending September 2023, broken down into imports and exports Table RFS0201

In the 12-month period ending September 2023, UK-registered HGVs transporting freight internationally lifted a total of 6.1 million tonnes (3.4 million tonnes imported, and 2.7 million tonnes exported). This is a decrease of 4% compared to the previous 12-month period ending September 2022 (6.3 million tonnes) and 25% below the annual average from 2015 to 2019 (8.2 million tonnes).

Over the last 20 years, the amount of goods lifted by UK-registered HGVs has been broadly decreasing for both imports and exports, with UK-registered HGVs usually importing more goods than exporting. The gap between imports and exports has widened in the 12-month period ending September 2023 to 0.8 million tonnes compared to 0.3 million tonnes in the previous 12-month period ending September 2022.

Infographic 2: Total amount of goods moved internationally by UK-registered HGVs in the 12-month period ending September 2023, broken down into imports and exports Table RFS0201

Focusing on goods moved rather than goods lifted, UK-registered HGVs transporting freight internationally moved a total of 3.7 billion tonne kilometres in the 12-month period ending September 2023 (2.0 billion tonne kilometres imported, and 1.7 billion tonne kilometres exported). This is a decrease of 4% compared to the previous 12-month period ending September 2022 (3.9 billion tonne kilometres) and 30% below the annual average from 2015 to 2019 (5.3 billion tonne kilometres).

Note: The previous announcement of the UK leaving the European Union and subsequent transition period, along with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and resulting supply chain disruption, have caused higher levels of volatility in freight statistics over the past 5 years.

Recent variation

Chart 1: Goods lifted internationally by UK-registered HGVs, shown with typical variation from the average, quarterly between 2015 and quarter 3 (October to September) 2023

Chart 1 illustrates recent volatility of international road freight by showing the variation from the 2015 to 2019 average.

The average amount of goods lifted between 2015 and 2019 was 2.0 million tonnes per quarter. The typical variation from this figure is shown by the standard deviation, which at 0.2 million tonnes indicates the amount of goods lifted was typically between 1.8 and 2.2 million (0.2 million tonnes higher or lower than the 2.0 million tonnes average) over this 5-year period.

In 2021, international road freight activity by UK-registered HGVs was low by historic standards, with the amount of goods consistently below the typical variation seen from 2015 to 2019. In 2022, there was some recovery from 2021 but activity fluctuated in and out of the range of typical variation. The amount of goods lifted showed minimal variation for the first 3 quarters of 2023, remaining below average at a similar level of 1.5 million tonnes lifted in each quarter.

The lower-than-average amount of goods lifted during the 12-month period ending September 2023 may reflect ongoing challenges for UK hauliers in the international freight industry and the economic effects of high inflation in 2022 and 2023.

Further sources of information

Other statistics related to freight and trade are available.

International road freight statistics: 2022

Domestic road freight statistics: 2022

Road goods vehicles travelling to Europe: 2022 

ONS UK trade statistical bulletins 

Port freight annual statistics: 2022 

Rail freight statistics factsheet: 2023

Aviation statistics

Please contact road freight statistics if you have any questions about the Department for Transport’s (DfT) road freight statistics.

About these statistics

These statistics were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation in December 2016. They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics and should be labelled ‘accredited official statistics’.

The continued designation of the road freight statistics as accredited official statistics was confirmed following a compliance check by the Office for Statistics Regulation against the Code of Practice in July 2016.

Data source

Previously international road freight data was collected via paper surveys until August 2021, when the method to collect data transitioned to an online survey. An investigation of the data concluded that the methodology change does not affect the comparability of the international data.

This short statistical release provides the latest headline statistics on the amount of goods carried by UK-registered HGVs and the distance they travelled. This release is published each quarter.

A more detailed annual release on international road freight is also available for 2022, which covers the type of goods carried by UK-registered HGVs, as well as their country of origin and destination. This annual report also summarises the latest information from Eurostat and the Traffic Commissioners from Great Britain on foreign-registered HGVs travelling to and from the UK, cabotage, and goods vehicle operator licences.

Accompanying data tables are available which give further detail on the key results presented in the statistical release.

Further information about the statistics and methodology in this report can be found in the road freight domestic and international statistics guidance.

Strengths and weaknesses of data

The figures in this release are derived from the International Road Haulage Survey (IRHS) combined with international trips collected under the Domestic Road Haulage Survey (NI) to provide a complete picture of the international freight activity carried out by UK-registered HGVs.

Excluded from the survey are HGVs registered in Northern Ireland making trips within the island of Ireland, foreign-registered vehicles and vehicles of 3.5 tonnes or less gross vehicle weight (Light Goods Vehicles).

The IRHS is a continuous survey which collects a range of information on freight movements from a sample of approximately 2,300 firms holding a standard international HGV licence in 2022. These licences are issued by the eight regional Traffic Commissioner Offices (TCO) and data are provided to the DfT by the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency (DVSA). In 2022, the overall survey response rate was 97%, with 31% of respondents completing the survey with information on international trips; 32% indicating they were still conducting international work but made no international trips during their survey period and 33% of firms conducting domestic work only or having ceased trading.

IRHS survey figures are scaled up to be representative of the total volume of HGV traffic travelling from GB to mainland Europe using ferry routes and the Channel Tunnel. This information is collected from returns provided by the roll-on roll-off ferry operators (RoRo), giving the number of powered vehicles and unaccompanied trailers carried on each route from GB to mainland Europe, and from monthly information supplied by Eurotunnel.

The Road Goods Travelling to Europe (RoRo) statistical series is currently undergoing a quality review due to a potential supplier data issue. The outcome of this review will impact the provisional statistics in this publication, therefore IRHS figures for this release are marked as provisional.

The use of RoRo data to weight the IRHS data may introduce a small bias for data on imports because RoRo information is collected on outward traffic only. This will affect the weighting of vehicles which return to the UK using a route different than that for the outward journey. RoRo data is also only able to disaggregate between UK and foreign vehicles. An assumption is therefore made on the proportion of UK vehicles which are registered in Northern Ireland to obtain an estimate of GB-registered vehicles.

This release and its contents partly rely on the use of administrative data from DVLA and DVSA. DfT have assessed the impact of this on the quality of these statistics, a report on which can be found in the Quality assurance of administrative data sources: Driver Vehicle Licensing Agency and Quality assurance of administrative data sources: Driver Vehicle Standards Agency.

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