Data on the volume of road freight traffic is routinely collected as part of Manual Classified Counts and at some Automatic Traffic Count sites. Weight in Motion sites can provide data on vehicle loadings. Origin-destination data collected at RSIs, in the main, provides data on the O-D of goods traffic although occasionally they will also include questions on the commodities being carried by HGVs.
Two government surveys, the Continuous Survey of Road Goods Traffic (CSRGT) and the Continuous International Road Haulage Survey (CIRHS) provide useful data on the total freight transported by road to and from each UK county or region, the commodities carried, the types of vehicle used and the length of haul.
To obtain data on rail freight movement is much more difficult and practitioners should approach the operators, Network Rail, and rail enthusiast publications.
Aggregate data on freight carried by air is available from the CAA sources but this provides no information on the commodities carried.
