UK government figures put HGV empty running at around 28 to 30% of total vehicle mileage (Department for Transport, 2026), a figure that has barely moved in years despite fleet management software becoming near-universal. Close to a third of vehicle mileage on UK roads generates fuel cost, driver time and vehicle wear with no delivered goods and no revenue to show for it.
Why the National Rate Hasn't Moved
Freight demand is directional and uneven: more goods move into some regions than out of them, seasonal demand shifts lane volumes, and delivery windows rarely line up neatly between an outbound and a return load. Fleet management and telematics software has improved substantially over the past decade, but most of that improvement targets route planning and vehicle tracking, not the live matching problem of finding a load to fill a specific truck's spare capacity on a specific route, in real time, before the window closes.
How the Rate Is Actually Measured
The Department for Transport's domestic road freight statistics track empty running as a share of total HGV vehicle kilometres, drawn from a continuous survey of vehicle activity across the UK fleet. It's a national average across all sectors and lane types, so an individual fleet's own empty running can sit well above or below 28 to 30% depending on how directional its specific freight flows are.
What Actually Moves the Number for a Given Fleet
Matching a backload by hand catches the lanes a dispatcher knows well. What closes the gap further is checking every live order against every route's remaining capacity and timing, calculating the real detour cost rather than just proximity, and doing it continuously as both routes and order pools shift through the day. That's a matching problem suited to a model trained on a fleet's own routes and order history, not a one-time planning exercise.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the empty running rate in UK road freight?
UK government figures put HGV empty running at around 28 to 30% of total vehicle mileage, a figure that has barely moved in years, according to the Department for Transport's domestic road freight statistics.
Why has the empty running rate stayed roughly flat for years?
Most fleets still match backloads by phone and driver memory, which reliably covers familiar, high-volume lanes but misses harder matches, an odd-shaped gap in a route or a smaller order that only pays off with a short detour, simply because no one has time to check them all.
Can automated backloading actually move this number for a specific fleet?
In live deployment, Anteam Reload has reduced empty legs by 50% and cut CO2 emissions by 34% per AI-matched delivery on the fleets running it, by continuously matching live orders to routes already underway.
Cutting a Fleet's Own Empty Running Rate
Anteam Reload™ matches live orders to a fleet's existing routes automatically, cutting empty legs by 50% and CO2 by 34% per matched delivery on fleets running it. Book a demo to see it against your own routes.
Related reading: what backloading actually means, and backloading for hauliers for a use-case walkthrough.