National statistics

Road goods vehicles travelling to Europe: 2020

Published 18 February 2021

Revisions

The statistical release for Road goods vehicles travelling to Europe 2020 underwent an audit for data covering the period October 2020 to December 2020. This led to a discovery of omission of data from some of the ferry routes which resulted in an increase of 52,409 (20%) trips made by unaccompanied trailers. There was no change to the figures for powered vehicles during this period.

When comparing the 12-month period ending December 2020 to the period ending December 2019:

• the total number of trips made by road goods vehicles travelling from Great Britain to Europe decreased by 5% to 3.2 million
• the number of trips made by powered vehicles decreased by 7% to 2.1 million
• the number of trips made by unaccompanied trailers decreased by 1% to 1.1 million

Of the 2.1 million powered vehicles that travelled from Great Britain to Europe:

• the number of trips made by UK-registered vehicles decreased by 15% to 0.3 million
• the number of trips made by foreign-registered vehicles decreased by 6% to 1.8 million

These statistics cover the period following the government’s announcement of measures to limit the impact and transmission of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. In early March 2020 the UK government set out four phases in its response to the coronavirus pandemic. The evolving situation around the world may have also impacted road goods vehicles trips prior to this stage. Coronavirus has had a wide impact on UK society and economic activity since March 2020.

These data are affected by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in the UK, so although the department was still able to collect the data during this time, caution should be taken when interpreting these data and comparing them with previous time periods. Intelligence from industry reports suggests that some Roll on Roll Off ferry routes ceased operating from April to June, whilst others only carried unaccompanied trailers. A fall in activity was seen across most of the routes surveyed during the April to June period, with some recovery taking place between July and September and a return to average between October and December.

The graph below shows the total number of trips made by road goods vehicles travelling from Great Britain to Europe each quarter since 2015, giving the number of trips in during the coronavirus pandemic period against the longer-term trend.

The graph shows the average number of trips over 2015-2020 as well as the expected variance from this average. The number of trips fall within the expected variance (± 1 standard deviation) for most quarters. There has been some wider variance (± 2 standard deviations of the average) in recent quarters, potentially impacted by logistics planning in the lead up to EU exit dates. Whereas quarter 2 2020 (April to June), fell far below this expected variance, the number of trips between July and September showed some return to expected variance and trips between October and December moved to between 1 to 2 standard deviations above average.

Further information about these statistics is available, including:

• data tables for roll-on roll-off international freight statistics

• notes and definitions for roll-on roll-off international freight statistics

We are trialling this compact HTML format for our roll-on roll-off international freight statistics releases, and we would like to hear your comments. If you have any feedback on our use of this format, please use our email address.