Transport Statistics Great Britain: 2023 Freight
Published 19 December 2024
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About this release
Transport Statistics Great Britain (TSGB) presents an annual summary of statistics for cross-modal transport topics, mostly relating to the calendar year 2023. This condensed set of highlights focuses on domestic freight and is complemented by other Department for Transport (DfT) releases presenting more detailed and recent statistics. See the Transport Statistics Finder to explore what other statistics are published by DfT.
Other cross-modal topics of TSGB, can be found in separate articles:
These are accredited official statistics and were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation in July 2010. For more information, see the About these statistics section.
The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and transport statistics
Some of the statistics in this release cover the period when national and regional measures were introduced to prevent and reduce the global spread of COVID-19. Transport trends have been affected by these measures, which can be seen in the official statistics in this report.
Domestic freight
Data source: TSGB0401 to TSGB0403
Considerations
In this section, and in table TSGB0401, the rail data relates to financial years. Other transport modes relate to calendar years.
Goods moved
Definition
Goods moved: the weight of goods carried, multiplied by the distance hauled, measured in tonne kilometres. This is a measure of the total freight activity, accounting for both the distance travelled and the weight of goods carried.
207 billion tonne-kilometres of domestic freight were moved in the UK in 2023, a decrease of 4% compared to 2022 (216 billion tonne-kilometres).
In 2023, in the UK, 167 billion tonne-kilometres were moved by roads, 24 by water and 16 by rail.
Chart 1: Proportion of domestic freight moved in the UK in 2023, by transport mode (billion tonne-kilometres)
Chart 1 is a horizontal bar chart showing the proportion of domestic freight moved in the UK by transport mode. This chart shows that 81% of domestic freight is moved by road, 12% by water and 8% by rail.
Road freight has consistently accounted for the largest share of domestic freight movement in the UK, followed by goods transported by water, with rail freight representing the smallest proportion. Despite fluctuations in overall trends, the relative proportions of these modes of transport have remained stable since data comparisons began in 2000.
Chart 2: Goods moved by domestic freight mode, from 2012 to 2023 (billion tonne-kilometres)
Chart 2 notes
This chart does not include a time series for road freight. This is due to a methodology change in road freight data in 2021 which means data before and after 2021 should not be compared.
More information can be found in the methodology note. This means no long-term data trends are available for domestic road freight statistics.
Chart 2 presents 2 line charts, showing domestic goods moved by water and rail, between 2012 and 2023. This chart shows that goods moved by sea and rail have both generally declined over the past 10 years. Over this period, water volumes have remained greater than the volume moved by rail.
Domestic goods moved by water broadly decreased between 2012 and 2017, from 36 to 25 billion tonne kilometres then remained stable between 2018 and 2023, ranging from 24 to 25 billion tonne kilometres. In 2023, goods moved by water decreased compared to 2022.
Domestic goods moved by rail broadly decreased between 2012 and 2015, from 21 to 18 billion tonne kilometres, then remained stable between 2016 and 2022, with a slight dip down to 15 billion tonne kilometres in 2020. In 2022, goods moved by rail decreased by 7% compared with the previous year. Strike action on the railways from June 2022 had an impact on the amount of freight moved by rail, as there were fewer available days on which freight trains could run. For goods moved by rail in 2023 this is stable and stayed similar to 2022.
Goods lifted
Definition
Goods lifted: the weight of goods carried, measured in tonnes. This is a measure of the amount of goods transported around the UK.
In 2023, 1.55 billion tonnes of goods were lifted in the UK by GB-registered heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) a decrease of 5% compared to 2022 (1.64 billion tonnes) (Domestic road freight statistics, United Kingdom: 2023).
The decrease in freight for 2023 was partly driven by the timing of the survey which meant that the survey captured more of the Christmas periods in 2023 due to the day of the week on which Christmas fell in 2022 and 2023. However, the amount of goods lifted per week was lower on average in 2023 than in 2022, even with Christmas periods excluded. This means the estimates for 2023 domestic road freight statistics would still have decreased from the previous year, even without this timing factor. Please see the note on timing in the domestic road freight statistics publication for more information about the methodology of the survey.
Definition
Inter-modal road freight journey: a heavy goods vehicle (HGV) journey where a different mode of transport is used to transfer goods to or from the HGV. Here, a journey is defined as goods transported from an origin to a destination by an HGV.
Inter-modal road freight journeys accounted for 9% (133 million tonnes) of the 1.55 billion tonnes of goods lifted by domestic road freight. For these inter-modal road freight journeys, 71% of goods lifted (95 million tonnes) were carried on journeys that began or ended at a shipping dock, 26% (35 million tonnes) on journeys that began or ended at a rail siding or terminal, and the remaining 4% (5 million tonnes) at airports (table RFS0132).
In 2023, a higher proportion of journeys started or ended at a rail sliding or terminal transferring to or from a heavy goods vehicle (24% of inter-modal journeys) compared to 2022 (19% of inter-modal journeys). There was also a lower proportion of journeys that started or ended at a shipping dock (68% of inter-modal journeys) compared to 2022 (72% of inter-modal journeys).
The total amount of goods lifted by water decreased by 3% to 91 million tonnes in 2023 compared to 2022 (94 million tonnes). Over the same period, the total amount of goods lifted by rail (69 million tonnes) decreased by 4% compared to 2022 (72 million tonnes).
Related statistics
Use the Transport Statistics Finder to explore, download and view the statistical content published by the department.
Other published, related DfT statistics are:
Background Information
We would welcome any feedback on these statistics by email. We will attempt to address any comments in a subsequent release.
Notes and definitions for each of the topics covered in TSGB are available.
About these statistics
The majority of the annual, official statistics in this release were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation in July 2010. They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics and should be labelled accredited official statistics. They undergo regular quality assurance reviews to ensure they meet customer needs.
Details of ministers and officials who receive pre-release access to these statistics up to 24 hours before release are available.
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