Waterborne freight in the United Kingdom: 2010

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Summary

This publication provides information on freight traffic moved within the United Kingdom by water transport. The statistics cover inland waters traffic, traffic carried around the UK coast, one-port traffic to and from offshore installations and sea dredging. These statistics are updated annually.

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Waterborne freight in the UK 2010 (PDF – 94 KB)

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Key points

The report covers the following issues:

Over the decade to 2010, goods lifted on UK waters fell by 23 per cent and goods moved fell by 37 per cent, but there were fluctuations up until 2005 for both goods moved and lifted. Since 2009, goods lifted and goods moved have fallen by 3 and 13 per cent respectively and have declined since 2008 by 14 and 15 per cent respectively.
In 2010, 71 per cent of goods moved on UK domestic waters was traffic around the coast; 26 per cent was one-port traffic (to or from offshore installations, or dredged materials) and 3 per cent was inland waters traffic (including both non-seagoing traffic and seagoing traffic crossing into inland waters).
Since 2000, coastwise traffic has fallen by 18 per cent in terms of goods moved. In 2010, coastwise traffic fell by 14 per cent compared with 2009.
One-port traffic has fallen by 64 per cent in the decade since 2000 in terms of goods moved. Traffic for 2010 was 15 per cent lower than in 2009.
In the decade since 2000, inland waters traffic has fallen by 18 per cent. However, at 1.4 billion tonne-kilometres, inland waters traffic is 7 per cent higher than in 2009.
Crude petroleum and petroleum products were the main type of cargo moved in 2010, accounting for 67 per cent of all waterborne freight moved.
The River Thames was the busiest of the major inland waterways, with 0.55 billion tonne-kilometres of goods moved (40 per cent of inland waters total) in 2010. This was followed by the River Forth and the River Humber (both at 0.17 billion tonne-kilometres).