National statistics

Road goods vehicles travelling to Europe: April 2020 to March 2021

Published 26 May 2021

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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/road-goods-vehicles-travelling-to-europe-april-2020-to-march-2021/road-goods-vehicles-travelling-to-europe-april-2020-to-march-2021

About this release

When comparing the 12-month period ending March 2021 to the 12-month period ending March 2020:

  • the total number of trips made by road goods vehicles travelling from Great Britain to Europe decreased by 6% to 3.1 million
  • the number of trips made by powered vehicles decreased by 8% to 2 million
  • the number of trips made by unaccompanied trailers increased by 1% to 1 million

Of the 2 million powered vehicles that travelled from Great Britain to Europe:

  • the number of trips made by UK-registered vehicles decreased by 19% to 0.3 million
  • the number of trips made by foreign-registered vehicles decreased by 7% to 1.7 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 4 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. The coronavirus pandemic has had a wide impact on UK society and economic activity since March 2020.

Caution should be taken when comparing these data to previous time periods because previously announced timings of the UK leaving the EU and subsequent transition period, along with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, have caused higher levels of volatility in freight statistics over the past 2 years.

The graph below shows the total number of trips made by road goods vehicles travelling from Great Britain to Europe since 2015.

The graph shows the average number of trips from 2015 to 2021 as well as the expected variance from this average. The number of trips fall within the expected variance (± 1 standard deviation) for most quarters however, there has been some wider variance (± 2 standard deviations of the average) in recent quarters. This is potentially due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Between April to June 2020 and January to March 2021, levels fell below the expected variance, showing the extent to which, the coronavirus may have impacted the activity of road goods vehicles travelling from Great Britain to Europe, as well as the potential impact of leaving the EU. Intelligence from industry reports suggests that a few roll-on, roll-off ferry routes ceased operating during these time periods whilst others only carried unaccompanied trailers. A fall in activity was seen across most of the routes surveyed. However, with only one quarter of data available, and the on-going pandemic and recession, it is too early to assess the extent to which this reflects short-term trade disruption or longer-term supply chain adjustments.

This chart shows the number of road goods vehicles travelling to Europe quarterly between 2015 and 2021.

Further information about these statistics is available, including:

We are trialling this compact HTML format for our quarterly 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 email roll-on, roll-off international freight statistics.

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