High Level Summary of Statistics Trend Last update: Friday, September 23, 2011
Road Network
There were 55,427 kilometres of public road in Scotland on 1 April 2009.
Scottish Ministers are responsible for the trunk road network, which comprises the motorways and some (but not all) of the main A roads. It accounted for 6 per cent of the total length of the public road network, but carried over a third of all the traffic. Local authorities are responsible for the rest of the public road network.
Unclassified roads accounted for almost half the road network - 26,367 km. There were 36,231 km of roads with a speed limit of over 40 mph - about two-thirds of the total network.
The length of motorway (excluding slip roads) has risen from 371 km in 1999 to 391 km in 2009. Between 1999 and 2009 the total length of the public road network increased by 1,818 km (3 per cent), from 53,523 km in 1999 to 55,341 km in 2009, mainly due to a rise of 1,172 km in the total length of unclassified roads with a speed limit of up to 40 mph.
View chart data
Source: Scottish Transport Statistics
Further Information