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UK congestion costs rise £1 billion in a decade

[ November 12, 2024   //   ]

The annual cost of congestion on the Strategic Road Network for HGVs increased by almost £1 billion between 2015 and 2024, according to new research commissioned by Logistics UK.

In its report, The UK Logistics Network by transport economists MDS Transmodal launched on 12 November, the business group pressed the Treasury and the Department for Transport to formally identify the UK’s Logistics Network and use it as the basis of a 30-year infrastructure strategy. According to the report, the UK logistics system is reliant on a relatively small number of critical corridors and a lack of capacity on them leads to bottlenecks where freight must compete for space with passenger transport. Examples include rail freight on the West Coast Main Line and road freight across the Pennines, around London and between the towns and cities of the Midlands.

Logistics UK chief executive, David Wells said: “Underinvestment has left the UK’s current logistics network ill-equipped to handle increasing freight volumes, leading to inefficiencies that affect the productivity and growth prospects of the entire economy. A critical underlying issue has been the relatively low level of investment in transport infrastructure over the past decade.

“For example, between 2016 and 2019, the UK’s annual growth rate in transport infrastructure investment was just 0.7%. In contrast, Germany, one of the UK’s main competitors in the logistics sector, saw its transport infrastructure investment grow by nearly 9% per year over the same period.”

Almost one third of all traffic on all major roads is logistics related, and this rises to 47% of traffic on high-volume routes.

On rail, high volume rail freight routes represent just 2% of the network in kilometres but carry 15% of all rail freight tonne kilometres. The report says that if speeds on rail routes could be improved by 25%, then operating costs could be reduced by £40 million per year.

Full copies of the report can be downloaded here:

https://logistics.org.uk/research-hub/reports/uk-logistics-network

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