Waterborne freight in the United Kingdom 2006

The Department for Transport has today published, in Waterborne Freight in the United Kingdom 2006, National Statistics on freight traffic carried on UK inland waters, around the UK coast, to and from UK offshore installations and sea dredging.

The report shows that in 2006:

* Traffic on UK domestic waters accounted for 5 per cent (126 million tonnes) of all goods lifted in the UK, and 21 per cent (52 billion tonne-kilometres) of all goods moved.

* Goods lifted on domestic waters fell 5 per cent compared with 2005, and goods moved by 15 per cent. This was largely due to a decrease in oil landed from North Sea oil fields, and reduced coastwise transport of oil.

* Over the decade to 2006 goods lifted on UK waters has fallen by 11 per cent, and goods moved by 6 per cent, but there have been fluctuations during the period.

* About three quarters of goods moved is accounted for by crude
petroleum and petroleum products.

* Of the total goods moved on UK domestic waters:
– 62 per cent was traffic around the coast

– 35 per cent was one-port traffic (to or from offshore
installations, or dredged materials)

– 3 per cent was inland waters traffic (including both non-seagoing traffic and seagoing traffic crossing into inland waters).

* Goods moved on inland waters rose by 3 per cent compared with 2005, while coastwise and one-port traffic fell by 18 per cent and 11 percent respectively.

* The River Thames was the busiest of the major inland waterways, with 0.76 billion tonne-kilometres of goods moved (45 per cent of the inland waters total, and 1.5 per cent of all waterborne traffic).

Traffic on the River Humber totalled 0.22 billion tonne-kilometres and the River Forth 0.18 billion tonne-kilometres