National statistics

Road lengths in Great Britain: 2023

Published 21 March 2024

Applies to England, Scotland and Wales

About this release

This annual release presents estimates for the length of road in Great Britain maintained at public expense.

These estimates are based on information from a range of sources, including Ordnance Survey and local authorities. The data relates to the length of roads as of April 2023. Detailed statistical tables can be accessed online via the road length statistical series.

To note, some of the figures in this release may not sum due to rounding.

These are accredited official statistics and were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation in February 2013. For more information, see the about these statistics section.

Headline figures in this release

In 2023, the total length of roads in Great Britain was estimated to be 245,700 miles.

There were 31,900 miles of major road in Great Britain in 2023, consisting of:

• 2,300 miles of motorway (99% trunk, 1% principal)

• 29,600 miles of ‘A’ road (18% trunk, 82% principal)

There were 213,800 miles of minor road in Great Britain in 2023, consisting of:

• 18,800 miles of ‘B’ road

• 195,000 miles of ‘C and U’ road

The proportion of the total road length by road classification (see Chart 1) consisted of:

• 1% motorway

• 12% ‘A’ road

• 8% ‘B’ road

• 79% ‘C and U’ road

Chart 1: A horizontal bar chart showing the percentage of road length by road classification, in Great Britain, in 2023 (RDL0103, RDL0203)

Roads in Great Britain (see Diagram 1)

By length, most roads in Great Britain are managed locally (by a local highway authority or Transport for London). These are principal roads and they include all minor roads (‘B’, ‘C’ and ‘U’ roads), and some major roads (principal ‘A’ roads and principal motorways).

The rest of the major road network (trunk motorways and trunk ‘A’ roads) is managed centrally by National Highways (formerly Highways England) in England, the Welsh Government in Wales, and Transport Scotland in Scotland. The trunk road network in England makes up the Strategic Road Network (SRN).

Motorways, ‘A’, ‘B’ and ‘C’ roads are classified roads, and ‘U’ roads are unclassified. ‘U’ roads are made up of roads that have a variety of uses but they are typically residential streets or rural lanes.

The lengths of ‘C’ and ‘U’ roads have been combined in this publication due to data constraints. Separate lengths for ‘C’ and ‘U’ roads are currently only available in years when the department runs an additional data collection. This was last conducted for 2022 road lengths, with data available in Table RDL0103.

For further information see the notes and definitions.

Diagram 1: A flow diagram showing the breakdown of road types and their management, in Great Britain

Trends over time

In 2023, there were 245,700 miles of road in Great Britain. This was 1,900 more miles than in 2003 (a 0.8% increase).

Most of the 1,900-mile change seen over the last 20 years is due to the changes in minor road lengths. There were 1,200 more miles of minor road in Great Britain in 2023 than in 2003 (a 0.6% increase) almost entirely driven by an increase in ‘C and U’ roads.

Chart 2: A bar chart showing the length of major road, by road type and management, in Great Britain, in 2003, 2013 and 2023 (RDL0103, RDL0203)

The rest of the increase in road length between 2003 and 2023 was accounted for by an 800 mile increase in major roads in Great Britain (a 2.5% increase), with motorways contributing 200 miles and ‘A’ roads 600 miles (see Chart 2). Whilst the overall length of ‘A’ roads increased by 600 miles between 2003 and 2023, the length of trunk ‘A’ roads decreased by 500 miles and the length of principal ‘A’ roads increased by 1,100 miles. This decrease in trunk road length predominantly reflects the ‘de-trunking’ of major roads to switch to management by local authorities. Alongside the construction of new roads, this de-trunking has driven much of the increase in principal road length since 2003.

Road length by country

Of the 245,700 miles of road in Great Britain in 2023:

• 187,700 miles (76%) of road were in England

• 21,100 miles (9%) were in Wales

• 37,000 miles (15%) were in Scotland

Table 1 below shows the varying composition of each country’s road network by road type (please note that these numbers may not sum to the same total due to rounding).

Table 1: Breakdown of road length (thousand miles) by country and road type, in Great Britain, in 2023 (RDL0101)

	Trunk Major Roads	Principal Major Roads	All Major Roads	‘B’ Roads	‘C and U’ Roads	All Minor Roads	Total Roads
England	4.6	17.9	22.4	12.4	152.8	165.2	187.7
Wales	1.1	1.7	2.7	1.9	16.5	18.3	21.1
Scotland	2.1	4.6	6.7	4.6	25.7	30.3	37.0
Great Britain	7.7	24.2	31.9	18.8	195.0	213.8	245.7

Chart 3: A series of doughnut charts showing the proportion of road length classified as major or minor road, for each country in Great Britain, in 2023 (RDL0101, RDL0201)

In 2023, of the 187,700 miles of road in England, 22,400 miles (12%) of this was major road. This was a smaller proportion of the road network than in Wales where there were 2,700 miles (13%), and in Scotland where there were 6,700 miles (18%) of major road (see Chart 3).

Chart 4: A bar chart showing the proportion of major road length, by country and management, in Great Britain, in 2023 (RDL0101, RDL0201)

In England, the SRN (all trunk motorways and trunk ‘A’ roads) was 4,600 miles long and makes up 2.4% of the total length of road in England, but 20% of major road length.

In comparison, trunk roads made up a higher proportion of the major road network in both Wales (39%) and Scotland (32%) (see Chart 4). The composition of these trunk roads differed in each country, with 42% of trunk roads classified as motorways in England, compared to only 8.4% in Wales and 14% in Scotland.

Scotland and Wales estimates

The Scottish and Welsh Governments produce their own separate road length estimates. The road length estimates for Scotland and Wales in this publication are produced by the UK Department for Transport, using the same methodology and at the same point in time for the whole of Great Britain, to provide road length estimates for Great Britain on a consistent basis.

Road length estimates produced by the devolved governments:

Transport Scotland: Scottish Transport Statistics 2022 - Chapter 4 - Road Network

Welsh Government: Stats Wales - Road lengths and conditions

Northern Ireland estimates

Road length estimates for Northern Ireland have been published as official statistics by the Department for Infrastructure Northern Ireland for the first time in 2023. Prior to this, these estimates have been made available as management information.

The Department for Transport produce road length statistics for Great Britain and so this report does not contain road length estimates for Northern Ireland.

Road length estimates for Northern Ireland:

Northern Ireland Road Length Statistics

Rural and urban breakdowns

Urban or rural classifications

The urban or rural classification of a road is based on the size of the population in the local area. As of April 2023, the population data defining the urban or rural classification for England and Wales was based on the 2011 census, for Scotland this was based on 2020 census data.

As the population data is not updated annually, the urban or rural classification may not reflect the latest population, particularly in newly populated areas such as new housing developments on brown field sites. This may be partly responsible for the gradual increase in the proportion of rural roads, as new roads are built to feed these new developments in previously unpopulated areas. The time delay between updates of this population information means that there is normally a step change in the relative length of urban and rural roads when the classifications are updated. Due to this, year-on-year comparisons of urban and rural road lengths should be made with caution.

Updated urban or rural classification for Scottish roads

The 2023 road length estimates for Scotland for both major and minor roads have been calculated using the 2020 urban or rural classification (the latest version available). This includes updated population data to provide a more current representation of urban and rural areas in Scotland. Previously the major road estimates for 2022 for Scotland used the updated 2020 urban or rural classification but minor road estimates were based on the 2016 definition.

In 2023, most road length in Great Britain was rural, with:

• 75% of ‘A’ roads

• 80% of ‘B’ roads

• 57% of ‘C and U’ roads being classed as rural

Chart 5: A bar chart showing the proportion of ‘A’ road and minor road length classified as urban or rural, by country in Great Britain, in 2023 (RDL0101, RDL0201)

Just as the makeup of the road network by road type varied between England, Wales and Scotland, so did the proportion of urban and rural road length. Wales had a higher proportion of ‘A’ roads classified as rural (88%) than England (71%) or Scotland (84%). Wales also had a higher proportion of minor roads classified as rural (77%) than England (57%) or Scotland (61%) (see Chart 5).

Background information

Rounding

Figures quoted in this publication are rounded to the nearest 100 miles. Raw differences and percentage changes are always calculated from unrounded numbers.

Traffic and road length in England

Vehicle activity is unevenly distributed across Great Britain’s road network.

In 2022, 65% of the motor vehicle miles travelled were on motorways and ‘A’ roads, despite comprising only 13% of the road network by length.

On an average day in 2022, 55 times more vehicles travelled along a typical stretch of motorway than a typical stretch of minor road (‘B’ roads, ‘C’ roads and unclassified roads).

More information can be found in the Road traffic estimates in Great Britain: 2022.

The figures presented above are referring to the latest published statistics. ‘Road Traffic Estimates in Great Britain 2023’ is provisionally scheduled for release in May 2024.

Methodology changes

The department aims to use Ordnance Survey MasterMap Highways Network product as the sole source of road length information once the data is of sufficient quality. The ongoing improvement work to Ordnance Survey MasterMap Highways means that year on year changes in road length estimates are likely to reflect methodological improvements and road reclassification, in addition to the construction or demolition of roads.

Other changes that have likely impacted road length estimates in recent years include improvements to the digitised road networks held by local authorities, alongside the transfer of housing estate roads to management by a third party (un-adoption).

Road length statistics are updated each year using data from Ordnance Survey. However, Ordnance Survey data has historically lacked sufficient accuracy to allow the statistics to accurately distinguish between ‘C’ roads and ‘U’ roads. This means that in most years road length estimates are only provided as a combined estimate for ‘C and U’ road length. To address this limitation, a road length consultation, known as the ‘R199b’, is run every 3 to 5 years. This consultation asks all local authorities in England to provide road length estimates, which the department validates against existing sources of this information.

The information on road classifications stored in the Ordnance Survey MasterMap Highways Network product has improved in recent years and continues to do so. The department is committed to improving the quality of this data so that it will replace the R199b process in future years.

Further technical and methodological information is available.

Accredited Official Statistics

Accredited Official Statistics are produced to high professional standards set out in the Code of Practice for Official Statistics. They undergo regular quality assurance to ensure customer needs are met. Details of ministers and officials who receive pre-release access to these statistics up to 24 hours before release can be found in the pre-release access list.

Further information about these statistics is available, including:

• road length statistics: data tables

• road length statistics: notes and definitions

• road length statistics: methodology and quality note

Future road length statistics publications

The department is continuing to assess the OS MasterMap Highways Network dataset to produce improved estimates of road length in future. The product is continuously being developed with Ordnance Survey (OS), GeoPlace and other stakeholders. If you have any questions, please email road length statistics.

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About these statistics

These official statistics were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation in February 2013. They comply with the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics and should be labelled ‘accredited official statistics’.

Contact details

Road length statistics

Email road.length@dft.gov.uk

Media enquiries 0300 7777 878

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