Accredited official statistics

Waterborne freight in the United Kingdom: 2010

This publication provides information on freight traffic moved within the United Kingdom by water transport.

Documents

Waterborne freight in the United Kingdom: 2010

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Waterborne freight in the United Kingdom 2010 and XLS tables

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Waterborne freight in the United Kingdom 2010 CSV tables

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Details

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.

Key points

The report covers the following issues:

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

Technical information:

Information on Domestic Waterborne Freight statistics, including the pre-release access list and related technical documentation is available.

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Updates to this page

Published 26 January 2012

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