Road Traffic Estimates: Great Britain 2015 (statistical release)

This release presents the latest annual estimates of traffic on Great Britain’s roads. It looks at recent and long-term trends in traffic, in the context of related statistics. Traffic is presented in units of vehicle miles, which combines the number of vehicles on the road and how far they drive.

Annual traffic statistics are compiled using data from around 8,000 roadside 12-hour manual counts, continuous data from around 300 automatic traffic counters, and data on road lengths.

Key findings
• Car traffic grew by 1.1% from 2014, to 247.7 billion vehicle miles. This is a new record, being slightly higher than the previous peak in 2007.

• Van traffic continued to grow more quickly than any other vehicle type, rising 4.2% from 2014 levels.

• Lorry traffic saw the largest year-on-year increase since the 1980s, growing by 3.7% from 2014.

• Motorways carried 66.5 billion vehicle miles of traffic, 2.6% more than in 2014 and 10% more than 10 years ago.

• The Strategic Road Network carried 89.7 billion vehicle miles of traffic; one-third of all motorised traffic in England.

• Rural roads saw a 2% rise in traffic from 2014, with traffic on both ‘A’ roads and minor roads reaching record levels.

• Urban roads saw little change in traffic from 2014.