Transport in the United Kingdom
Transport in the United Kingdom is facilitated by road, rail, air and water networks. Some aspects of transport are a devolved matter, with each of the countries of the United Kingdom having separate systems under separate governments.
A radial road network totals of main roads, of motorways and of paved roads. The National Rail network of 10,072routemiles in Great Britain and 189routemiles in Northern Ireland carries over 18,000 passenger and 1,000 freight trains daily. Urban rail networks exist in all cities and towns with dense bus, light rail networks, and walking and cycling routes.
There are many regional and international airports, with Heathrow Airport in London being one of the busiest in the world and busiest in Europe. UK ports handled of goods in 2019.
Transport trends
Since 1952, the United Kingdom saw a growth of car use, which increased its modal share, while the use of buses declined, and railway use has grown.However, since the 1990s, rail has started increasing its modal share at the expense of cars, increasing from 5% to 10% of passenger-kilometres travelled. This coincided with the privatisation of British Rail. In 1952, 27% of distance travelled was by car or taxi; with 42% being by bus or coach and 18% by rail. A further 11% was by bicycle and 3% by motorcycle. The distance travelled by air was negligible.
Passenger transport continues to grow strongly. Figures from the Department for Transport show in 2018 people made 4.8billion local bus passenger journeys, 58% of all public transport journeys. There were 1.8billion rail passenger journeys in the United Kingdom. Light rail and tram travel also continued to grow, to the highest level since comparable records began in 1983. In 2018/19, there was £18.1bn of public expenditure on railways, an increase of 12%. The average amount of time people wait at a stop or station for public transport in London and Manchester is 10 minutes.
Freight transport has undergone similar changes, increasing in volume and shifting from railways onto the road. In 1953 89billion tonne kilometres of goods were moved, with rail accounting for 42%, road 36% and water 22%. By 2010 the volume of freight moved had more than doubled to 222billion tonne kilometres, of which 9% was moved by rail, 19% by water, 5% by pipeline and 68% by road. Despite the growth in tonne kilometres, the environmental external costs of trucks and lorries in the UK have reportedly decreased. Between 1990 and 2000, there has been a move to heavier goods vehicles due to major changes in the haulage industry including a shift in sales to larger articulated vehicles. A larger than average fleet turnover has ensured a swift introduction of new and cleaner vehicles in the UK.
The adoption of plug-in electric vehicles is widely supported by the British government through the plug-in car and van grants schemes and other incentives. About 745,000 light-duty plug-in electric vehicles had been registered in the UK up until December 2021, consisting of 395,000 all-electric vehicles and 350,000 plug-in hybrids. In 2019, the UK had the second largest European stock of light-duty plug-in vehicles in use after Norway.
Greenhouse gas emissions
A critical issue for the transport sector is its contribution to climate change emissions. Transport became the largest sector of greenhouse gas emissions in 2016. Since 1990 carbon dioxide emissions from transport in the UK have reduced by just 4% compared with an economy-wide reduction of 43%. Emissions from surface transport accounted for 22% of carbon dioxide emissions in the UK in 2019 with cars being responsible for over half of that. The Climate Change Committee has suggested that transport will need to cut its emissions to zero by a mix of demand reduction, the adoption of more efficient combustion engine vehicles, changing to non-car based modes and electrification of the fleet.Air transport
There are 471 airports and airfields in the UK. There are also 11 heliports. Heathrow Airport is the largest airport by traffic volume in the country and is owned by Heathrow Airport Holdings. Gatwick Airport is the second largest airport and is owned by Global Infrastructure Partners. The third largest is Manchester Airport, which is run by Manchester Airport Group, which also owns various other airports.Other major airports include Stansted Airport in Essex and Luton Airport in Bedfordshire, both about north of London, Birmingham Airport, Newcastle Airport, Liverpool Airport, and Bristol Airport.
Outside England, Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast, are the busiest airports serving Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland respectively.
The largest airline in the United Kingdom by passenger traffic is easyJet, whereas British Airways is largest by fleet size and international destinations. Others include Jet2, TUI Airways and Virgin Atlantic.
Rail transport
The rail network in the United Kingdom consists of two independent parts, that of Northern Ireland and that of Great Britain. Since 1994, the latter has been connected to mainland Europe via the Channel Tunnel. The network of Northern Ireland is connected to that of the Republic of Ireland. The National Rail network of in Great Britain and 189routemiles in Northern Ireland carries 1.7billion passengers and 110milliontonnes of freight annually.Urban rail networks are also well developed in London and several other cities. There were once over of rail network in the UK. The UK was ranked eighth among national European rail systems in the 2017 European Railway Performance Index assessing intensity of use, quality of service and safety.
Great Britain
The rail network in Great Britain is the oldest such network in the world. The system consists of five high-speed main lines, which radiate from London and other major cities to the rest of the country, augmented by regional rail lines and dense commuter networks within cities and other high-speed lines. High Speed 1 is operationally separate from the rest of the network, and is built to the same standard as the TGV system in France.File:800006_London_Paddington.jpg|thumb|Great Western Railway Hitachi class at London Paddington StationThe world's first passenger railway running on steam was the Stockton and Darlington Railway, opened on 27 September 1825. Just under five years later the world's first intercity railway was the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, designed by George Stephenson and opened by the Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington on 15 September 1830. The network grew rapidly as a patchwork of literally hundreds of separate companies during the Victorian era, which eventually was consolidated into just four by 1922, as the boom in railways ended and they began to lose money.Eventually, the entire system came under state control in 1948, under the British Transport Commission's Railway Executive. After 1962 it came under the control of the British Railways Board; then British Railways, and the network was reduced to less than half of its original size by the infamous Beeching cuts of the 1960s when many unprofitable branch lines were closed. Several stations and lines have since been reopened in England and Wales.
In 1994 and 1995, British Rail was split into infrastructure, maintenance, rolling stock, passenger and freight companies, which were privatised from 1996 to 1997. The privatisation has delivered very mixed results, with healthy passenger growth, mass refurbishment of infrastructure, investment in new rolling stock, and safety improvements being offset by concerns over network capacity and the overall cost to the taxpayer, which has increased due to growth in passenger numbers. While the price of anytime and off-peak tickets has increased, the price of Advance tickets has dramatically decreased in real terms: the average Advance ticket in 1995 cost £9.14 compared to £5.17 in 2014.
In Great Britain, the infrastructure is owned and maintained by Network Rail, a body of the Department for Transport. Passenger services are operated by mostly public train-operating companies, with private franchises awarded by the Department for Transport, Transport Scotland, and Transport for Wales. Examples include Avanti West Coast, Great Western Railway and East Midlands Railway. Some other passenger TOCs make use of open-access contracts or concessionary contracts for their operations, such as Hull Trains or Merseyrail, respectively. Freight trains are operated by freight operating companies, such as DB Cargo UK, which are commercial operations unsupported by the government. Most train operating companies do not own the locomotives and coaches that they use to operate passenger services. Instead, they are required to lease these from the three rolling stock companies, with train maintenance carried out by companies such as Bombardier and Alstom.
Rail passenger revenue in 2018/19 increased in real terms year-on-year. In 2018/19, there was £18.1bn of public expenditure on railways, an increase of 12%. There were 1.8billion rail passenger journeys in England. Light rail and tram travel also continued to grow, to the highest level since comparable records began in 1983.
In Great Britain there are of gauge track, reduced from a historic peak of over. Of this, is electrified and is double or multiple tracks. The maximum scheduled speed on the regular network has historically been around on the InterCity lines. On High Speed 1, trains are now able to reach the speeds of French TGVs. High Speed 2, under construction, is a wide high-speed line connecting London with Birmingham Curzon Street. The Network North programme consists of hundreds of transport projects mostly in Northern England and Midlands, including new high-speed lines linking up major cities and railway improvements. To cope with increasing passenger numbers, there is a large ongoing programme of upgrades to the network, including Thameslink, Crossrail, electrification of lines, in-cab signalling, new inter-city trains and high-speed lines. Great British Railways is a planned state-owned public body that will oversee rail transport in Great Britain. The Office of Rail and Road is responsible for the economic and safety regulation of the UK's railways.