Brexit : UK reliance on overseas hauliers

About 90% of HGVs bringing imports into the UK from the European continental mainland are foreign-registered and for this reason the UK needs to maintain a liberalised market for the transport of goods to and from the EU after Brexit. The dominance of the UK market by overseas registered hauliers is due to the shippers of the goods – mainly exporters to the UK based on the continental mainland - finding it more cost effective to use local hauliers to transport their goods. These overseas-based hauliers then seek backloads (of much lower volumes) of UK exports to return with a load to the continental mainland. 

The chart shows the shift in market share between the overseas hauliers by nationality since 2002 and how Central and Eastern European registered hauliers have secured an increasing proportion of the market, while those registered in Germany, France and Benelux have gradually lost market share. Western European hauliers transported 66% of the goods transported by overseas hauliers in 2002 and this had fallen to only 21% in 2017; over the same period the market share carried by Central and Eastern European hauliers increased from 5% to 54%.

This trend was driven by the entry of many of the former-Communist bloc countries into the EU in 2003, the gradual switch of European manufacturing capacity to these same countries as they became more integrated into the EU Single Market and the lower cost base enjoyed by hauliers registered in countries such as Poland, Romania and Lithuania. As the Irish and Iberian markets are more geographically isolated, the local hauliers have been able to remain competitive. The growth in market share by Central and Eastern European hauliers is levelling off as their costs increase relative to those in other continental countries.