Transport Statistics Great Britain: 2022 Freight
Published 14 December 2023
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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 2022. 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:
The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and transport statistics
Most of the statistics in this release cover the period when national and regional measures were introduced to prevent and reduce the global spread of coronavirus (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
Definitions
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.
Goods lifted: the weight of goods carried, measured in tonnes. This is a measure of the amount of goods transported around the UK.
Inter-modal road freight journey: an 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.
Considerations
In this section, and in table TSGB0401, the rail data relates to financial years. Other transport modes relate to calendar years.
Goods moved
216 billion tonne-kilometres of domestic freight were moved in the UK in 2022, of which 81% was moved by road.
In 2022, in the UK, 175 billion tonne-kilometres were moved by roads, 25 by water and 16 by rail.
Chart 1: Proportion of domestic freight moved in the UK in 2022, 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 7% by rail.
Chart 2: Goods moved by domestic freight mode, from 2012 to 2022 (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 2022. 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 2022, ranging from 24 to 25 billion tonne kilometres. In 2022, goods moved by water increased by 4% compared to 2021. This increase was largely driven by a 10% rise in coastwise goods moved, from 2021.
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.
Goods lifted
In 2022, 1.64 billion tonnes of goods were lifted in the UK by GB-registered heavy goods vehicles (HGVs). The amount of goods lifted remained steady throughout the year, varying by no more than 3% from quarter to quarter (Domestic road freight statistics, United Kingdom: 2022).
Inter-modal road freight journeys accounted for 8% (125 million tonnes) of the1.64 billion tonnes of goods lifted by domestic road freight. For these inter-modal road freight journeys, 76% of goods lifted (95 million tonnes) were carried on journeys that began or ended at a shipping dock, 22% (28 million tonnes) on journeys that began or ended at a rail siding or terminal, and the remaining 3% (4 million tonnes) at airports.
The total amount of goods lifted by water increased by 1% to 93.9 million tonnes in 2022 compared to 2021. Over the same period, the total amount of goods lifted by rail decreased by 10%.
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.
The majority of the annual statistics in this release are National Statistics. This means they are produced to high professional standards set out in the Code of Practice for Statistics. They undergo regular quality assurance reviews to ensure they meet customer needs.
These annual statistics were designated as National Statistics in July 2010.
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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