The UK transportation industry has been dominated by road freight for many years, but nowadays there are many industry experts who claim that sea freight transportation provides with significant advantages over road transport. Forcing it to re-evaluate the benefits of moving goods by water, they believe that these advantages will gradually erode the industry's reliance on the roads.
Around 2 billion tones of freight are being annually transported in the UK, as 7% of this amount is being transported by water whilst the majority is moved by road. An important aspect which has to be taken into consideration is being represented by the fact that when it comes to transporting heavy cargo over longer distances, sea freight transportation is frequently more efficient. Also, there has to be kept in mind that sea transportation makes up around 26% of all cargo transported in the UK, as on an annual basis more than 130 million tones of cargo is moved by sea in the UK .
It is considered nowadays that sea freight transportation is more advantageous than road freight transportation, as there are many aspects to prove this theory. Therefore, sea freight transportation is perceived to be relatively environmentally friendly and does not pose the same noise problems as road freight, as road freight transportation causes high levels of both noise and chemical pollution. Another essential aspect to be considered is that sea freight transportation in the UK is much safer than road freight, as sea freight transportation still has much lower death rates from accidents than road transport, although there have been a number of improvements in road safety levels over the last few decades.
The sea freight transportation industry in the UK is likely to become increasingly important over the next few years, as water transport is considered to be much safer than road transport.