Scottish Government

Chapter 3
Background and supporting evidence

How does freight move in Scotland?

Road

• The large majority of goods are moved by road in Scotland, accounting for around three quarters of tonnes lifted
• Between 1993 and 2003, tonnage of freight moved by road decreased by 5%
• However, goods are being carried further with the average distance travelled increasing by 20% to 94 kilometres over the same period
• Average payload weight on lorries in Scotland has remained at 12.5 tonnes
• The proportion of kilometres run empty by trucks has been in steady decline over the past 30 years: 33.7% in 1973 to 26.5% in 2003
• The fuel efficiency of articulated lorries has improved by over 22% over the past 14 years
• The number of small vans under 3.5 tonnes on our roads has risen almost 3 times faster than car and lorry traffic between 1995 and 2005, and they now account for about an eighth of all traffic on Scotland's roads
• The trunk road network connects destinations of importance to industry, commerce, agriculture and tourism. These roads are the direct responsibility of Scottish Ministers (through Transport Scotland)
• Although only 6% of the total public road length, trunk roads carried 62% of all the HGV traffic on Scottish roads in 2005
• Large Goods Vehicles ( LGVs over 3.5 tonnes) and Heavy Goods Vehicles ( HGVs over 7.5 tonnes) represent under 1-in-10 of all vehicles
• LGVs and HGVs account for under a fifth of all traffic

(Source: Scottish government, 2005e, Table 6.2)
Note: Road traffic is measured in total number of kilometres travelled. For the purpose of the above comparison, each lorry and bus is converted to 2.5 passenger car equivalent units before the percentages are calculated, in order to account for the fact that they occupy more road space. If the percentages are calculated in vehicle kilometres, lorries account for only 6% of total road traffic.

Rail

• Freight tonnes lifted by rail has risen from 5.4 million tonnes in 1996-97 to 10.9 million tonnes in 2004-05
• Freight represented 5,546 million tonne miles on Scotland's railways in 2004-05. This is a 17% increase on 2003-04
• Much of this growth is due to the increased demand for coal from the electricity supply industry in response to the rise in oil and gas prices
• 75% of this traffic is coal, 10% cement, with the balance consisting of oil, and fast moving consumer goods (parcels, supermarkets, etc)

(Note: for buses that the 1994 value = 100, LGV = Light Goods Vehicles under 3.5 tonnes)

Water

• Container traffic has increased steadily in Scotland: worldwide 60% of freight which can be containerised is, and this is expected to rise to 90% by 2015
• Services from the Firth of Forth represent only 2% of total Roll-on Roll-off (RoRo) freight capacity between the UK and mainland Europe
• Between 1990 and 2004 there was a 39% increase in freight traffic between Scottish ports and Ireland, much less than the 143% growth experienced by all RoRo freight traffic
• Commercial goods vehicle traffic has grown to the Northern Isles: between Aberdeen and Lerwick the commercial goods vehicle traffic, when measured in ferry lane metres, increased from 118,791 in 2002-03 to 158,894 in 2004, a 34% rise. Between Lerwick and Kirkwall, the traffic increased from 2,026 to 5,483, a 171% rise
• Total Clyde/west coast/Hebridean carryings for 2003-2004 increased by 6.4% from 138,300 to 147,100 commercial vehicles
• Total carryings for the Western Isles increased by only 1% from 21,900 to 22,300
• Between 1997 and 2004, commercial vehicles demand in the Western Isles actually decreased by 6%

Air

• Statistics on the quantities of airfreight handled by a particular airport can be misleading as much of the freight channelled through Scottish airports does not actually fly in or out but is trucked to e.g. Heathrow
• In 2002 it was estimated that 44 lorries per day moved between Scotland and Heathrow Airport carrying airfreight
• The Scottish government's investment through its Route Development Fund has significantly increased Scotland's international and domestic air connections

Note: All air services above carry cargo in belly-hold except Polar and Cargolux. Those airlines marked with an asterisk "*" use Boeing 757 which imposes a maximum of 150 kg limit per piece of consignment. The rest of the airlines use Boeing 767 or 777, which does not have per consignment piece weight restriction.

Pipelines

• The amount of oil carried in pipelines has been stable at around 28 million tonnes and nearly 6 billion tonne-km per year since 1998.