Department for Transport produces statistics relating to the maritime sector within the areas of:

• domestic waterborne freight
• ports
• sea passengers
• shipping fleets
• seafarers

Further information on each of these topics is available below and in the documents on this page.

Domestic waterborne freight

Information on freight traffic carried on inland waters and around the coast of the United Kingdom. This covers inland waters traffic, traffic carried around the UK coast, one-port traffic to and from offshore installations and sea dredging.

These statistics are produced from a combination of sources, which include:

• survey of barge operators, carried out by DfT
• port traffic statistics produced by DfT from returns supplied by shipping lines or their agents and port authorities as required by an EU Maritime Statistics Directive
• ship arrivals data supplied by Lloyd’s List Intelligence

Waterborne Freight Benchmark Report

In 2007, an inventory giving details of the physical infrastructure of inland waterways which are used, or potentially could be used, to carry freight was conducted. This included details of wharves and inland waterway craft associated with these waterways. A summary report can be found above, accompanied by a detailed inventory of individual waterways, wharves and inland waterway craft, in Excel format.

Ports

These statistics are based mainly on returns from port operators and shipping lines and agents. Further details for shipping lines, their agents and ports on completing statistical returns on maritime freight traffic through ports, as required by the European Commission Maritime Statistics Directive (95/64/EU) can be found on the Maritime statistics directive page.

Editions of the previous produced Maritime Statistics compendium are available from archived publications. These were produced up until 2009.

In 2009 to 2010, Department for Transport commissioned a survey of port authorities and port related businesses, looking at employment and the incidence of accidents. A summary and full report of the findings can be found above.