The IOC GVPPI numbers,
(Geography, vehicles, people, package & infrastructure numbers)
the GVPPI numbers for last mile delivery in the UK market summarised below.
Updated numbers are made available to fellows each year.
Understanding the GVPPI numbers for this report
Dealing with the questions, typical last mile, total distance travelled per route, how many drops, stops etc. predicting self-employed vans exceeding PAYE drivers in last mile and challenging the question of full and part time comparisons.
1 van 100 stops / deliveries. - In conventional density each day.
1 van 200 stops / deliveries in city density.
Covering 100 miles including depot start and return
Use a version of these number metrics aligned to your LSP to work out the volume of van, small large to the number of workforce?
GVPPI - Geography
UK with 30 million residential address
4,300 miles of motorways and major a roads
All Van traffic covers 51 billion road miles
Predicting last mile van miles are 5 billion miles
UK address location numbers -
30 million residential address (29,650,649 Roya Mail Postal Address file - PAF)
1,4 million Business names (1,365,000 Royal mail PAF)
1,500 post towns on PAF,
1,747,2020 postcodes.
36 Counties
Roads and Motorway Statistics Source: Road Lengths in Great Britain: 2019
In 2019, there were 247,100 miles of road in Great Britain. This was 2,000 more miles than a decade earlier in 2009, and 5,000 more miles than in 1999.
There were 31,800 miles of major road in Great Britain in 2019, consisting of 2,300 miles of motorway and 29,500 miles of ‘A’ roads. These major roads make up 13 per cent of the total road length.
The majority of road lengths in Great Britain is made up of minor roads, with these roads accounting for 215,200 miles in 2019, consisting of 18,800 miles of ‘B’ roads and 196,400 miles of ‘C’ and ‘U’ roads. These minor roads make up 87 per cent of the total road length.
In Great Britain in 2018, light van and Heavy Goods Vehicle (HGV) traffic accounted for 16 per cent and 5 per cent respectively of all traffic.
Van traffic grew slightly (by 0.9 per cent) from 2017 to a record 51.0 billion vehicle miles.
Source: Road Traffic Estimates: Great Britain 2018
About 28 – 30 per cent of HGVs are “driving around empty” at any one time.
Source: Institution of Mechanical Engineers: UK Freight – In for the Long Haul
The western half of the M25, between Junctions 14 and 15, had the highest average traffic flow in 2018 with 219,000 vehicles per day.
Source: Road Traffic Estimates: Great Britain 2018
The local authority with the highest traffic level is Hampshire with 9.773 billion vehicle miles. Hampshire is followed by Essex (9.586 billion vehicle miles) and Kent (9.565 billion vehicle miles).
Source: Road Traffic Estimates: Great Britain 2018 and TRA8901
2018, the average free flow speed of cars was 68 mph on motorways and 50 mph on national speed limit single carriageways. Vans were observed to have near-identical average free flow speeds to cars on these road types, with values of 69 mph and 50 mph respectively.
Bridges, The 210 local highway authorities in England, Scotland and Wales manage 71,505 bridges – defined as structures over 1.5 m in span
Parking. It is estimated that there are between 17,000 and 20,000 non- residential car parks in Great Britain, including those run by councils, commercial parking companies, shops, hospitals, businesses, railway stations and airports, providing between 3 and 4 million spaces.
GVPPI - Vehicle
450,000 last mile vans (full and part time) covering 5 billion miles
Comparing Vehicle Statistics from source RAC Foundation
The rapid rise in van traffic over the last 25 years means that van traffic now makes up around 16 per cent of total traffic, compared to 10 per cent in 1993. Alongside the 89 per cent increase in van miles between 1994 and 2018, the number of licensed vans rose 88 per cent over the same period, from 2.1 to 4.0 million.
Van traffic grew 0.9 per cent between 2017 and 2018 to reach a record high of 51.0 billion vehicle miles; the fastest growth in percentage terms of any motor vehicle type.
400,000 new vans reg each month (SMMT 2020 – 382,326 Aug 2019)
4.5 million vans total on the UK roads 2020
600,000 HGV trucks
1.6 BILLION TONNES OF GOODS moved by the UK freight system (National Infrastructure Commission, 2019, p. 4)
600,000 light trucks
Ref to annex for Graph on the rise of van numbers.
GVPPI – Person numbers
Last mile parcel drivers = 700,000 (full & part time)
Postal Workers including sortation 154,000 (70,000 front line)
Case studies for people to package and van match.
Parcels - 5 billion parcels - 100 stops, 5 day week, 50 weeks year, 250,000 stops a year, part time & layering of drivers factoring to 400,000 vans at 100 drops a day.
Mail – 16 billion items – 70,000 front line, 6 day week, 50 weeks a year, 300 days, 761 items a day – 4 items per stop gives 190 drops a day.
UK Govt. ONS Labour Force Survey Q1 2019
Van Drivers in employment = 290,000 (Not all parcel)
80% of Express delivery operators have mixed employment status amongst drivers on their delivery fleets (IOC Survey 2017). Of those companies surveyed 100% have self-employed drivers and 76% PAYE fleets. 68% of fleets also use part-time/lifestyle drivers, but only 36% use agency drivers. 68% of Self-employed drivers use their own vehicle.
2020 prediction for Self-employed driver numbers 300,00
Postal workers, mail sorters, messengers and couriers = 154,000
Next generation workforce 18-19 in training = 7,000
Apprenticeship numbers England & Wales 18-19
LGV 1756
Supply chain warehouse 1805
Old frameworks similar numbers for same year 1821 & 1501
also express delivery operative, mail services etc.
Latest DVSA estimates show that 75 per cent of all adults aged 17 and over in England (an estimated 33.6 million people) held a full car driving licence in 2018 – and therefore are able to drive a van of up to 3.5 tonnes.
GVPPI - Package Numbers
IMRG numbers and the box graph to add
250 Billion pounds retail value delivered 2020
(IMRG are retail only - not including ebay)
2018 200 billion
2017 170
2016 130
2015 114
2014 104
2013 91
2012 78
2011 68
100 million parcels a day - 2020 East Midlands Airport – busiest freight airport in the UK, MD Karen Smart ‘A million parcels a day during COVD.’
Eight weeks into COVID, Ocado are hitting 18 million items a week picked, 250 thousand orders a week and delivering seven days.
Looking at the other big players in food final mile. Asda & Tesco in the 800 thousand a week bracket and Sainsbury’s close behind, Waitrose, Morrison’s and Iceland on big numbers brings a conservative weekly delivery total to three million food final mile drops a week
In the last year the milk round local delivery platforms had already seen a big resurgence.
Add another half a million milk round drops to the food final mile numbers.
Three and a half million final mile food deliveries a week
Times 50 weeks is 175million a year plus miscellaneous food
GVPPI - Infrastructure numbers
2 million, 718 thousand UK VAT/PAYE registered businesses 2019
Transport and storage including postal 111,000
Wholesale and retail 389,000
Professional, scientific and technical 472,000
Health 102,000
Arts, entertainment, recreation 174,00
UK retail stats & facts
Total value of UK retail sales in 2019 £394 Billion
75 billion of retail sales online 2019
Proportion of retail sales made online in 2019 19%
Average annual growth of online retail sales in 2019 10%
Online sales have risen three fold in the last 10 years 324%