High Level Summary of Statistics Trend Last update: Monday, September 28, 2009
Road Network
There were 55,174 kilometres of public road in Scotland on 1 April 2008.
Scottish Ministers are responsible for the trunk road network, which comprises the motorways and some (but not all) of the main A roads. It accounted for 6 per cent of the total length of the public road network, but carried over a third of all the traffic. Local authorities are responsible for the rest of the public road network.
Unclassified roads accounted for almost half the road network - 26,232 km. There were 36,100 km of roads with a speed limit of over 40 mph - about two-thirds of the total network.
The length of motorway (excluding slip roads) has risen from 369 km in 1998 to 391 km in 2008. Between 1998 and 2008 the total length of the public road network increased by 1,849 km (3 per cent), from 55,325 km in 1998 to 55,174 km in 2008, mainly due to a rise of 1,309 km in the total length of unclassified roads with a speed limit of up to 40 mph.
View chart data
Source: Scottish Transport Statistics
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