Survey of foreign Vehicle Activity In GB 2003

The number of foreign registered heavy goods vehicles travelling to Great Britain has increased almost three times over the last 10 years. In the summer of 2003, a survey of foreign registered HGV activity in GB was undertaken to provide more detailed information on foreign vehicle activity than is available from the quarterly Ro-Ro enquiry.

Provisional figures were published in September 2003 (See related file below - Provisional report).

Detailed findings were published in November 2003 in the Survey of Foreign Vehicle Activity in Great Britain - 2003.

Key points include:

• Average distance travelled per round trip within GB is 640 kilometres. Over two thirds (68%) is on motorways.
• Most drivers spend only a short period of time in GB, on average less than 2 days, with a sixth (16%) returning on the same day and four fifths (83%) spending less than 3 days in GB.
• Around 20 per cent of foreign registered HGVs entering GB made at least one trip to GB per week, accounting for three-fifths (62%) of all trips.
• A large majority (90%) of trips are made by EU-based operators and by drivers resident in the EU.
• Around 84 per cent of foreign vehicles have a gross vehicle weight over 38 tonnes and the average weight of load is 23 tonnes.
• In GB total activity by foreign vehicles is around 10 billion tonne-kilometres per annum compared with 150 billion tonne-kilometres by UK registered vehicles: most of this activity was undertaken by French, Dutch, Irish Republic and German vehicles moving 2.4, 1.3, 1.3 and 1.1 billion tonne-kilometres respectively.

The annual estimates include detailed analysis of time spent and frequency of stay in Great Britain. They also include activity by type and gross weight of vehicle, and by country of registration, commodities carried, and inter-regional flows. The survey also provides information on the activity of foreign registered vehicles undertaking cabotage.

Publication details

Published on 20 November 2003 by Transport Statistics

E-mail roadfreight.stats@dft.gov.uk for queries concerning road freight statistics.

For information about release of this product see National Statistics Online