In the UK, an alarming £250 million is estimated to be lost annually to freight crimes, totaling a predicted £6.1 billion by 2049, research by SNAP, the haulage industry’s digital marketplace, has revealed. With inflation rising this figure could even reach a staggering £7.9 billion. Across Europe €8.2 billion is lost to cargo theft, every year.
Freight crime offences in 2023 were responsible for the loss of £68.3 million wholesale value in stolen goods, with an estimated true value of between £680-£700 million. There is a growing community of professionalised criminals who see freight crime as a low-risk, high-reward activity, with the law treating theft from lorries in the same manner as opportunistic theft from a car.
With the haulage industry making technological advancements in other areas, like autonomous trucks and EV vehicles, decision-makers are questioning why the industry does not leverage available technology and incorporate the latest security features to help fight freight crimes. SNAP has explored what a safe and secure truck park of the future would look like, by 2049, to raise awareness.
Image: SNAP
Based on the newest crime-fighting innovation from across the world, SNAP anticipates that:
- Truck parks will have 24/7 security, including the use of robot policing, such as dogs and patrols that provide autonomous surveillance, allowing all areas of truck parks to be monitored, without a human needing to be present.
- Secure entrances and exits will be introduced, which will only be accessed by pre-booked trucks, and monitored via license plate recognition.
- AI criminal pattern predictions, to anticipate crime.
- Facial recognition.
- Thermal cameras, to detect any unusual activity.
Other predictions include using information from tachographs to monitor truck drivers, helping to predict when drivers will need to reach truck stops, and keeping drivers rest safely away from roadsides.
Matthew Bellamy, managing director at SNAP said “There is an urgent need for investments in the safety and security of truck parks across the UK and Europe, truck drivers are the lifeblood of our economies and ensure that the public gets what they need. We need to encourage more people into the industry by offering a safe and secure environment for all. This highlights the need to protect drivers’ wellbeing, keeping them physically and mentally safe, alongside the financial benefits for supply chain operators and improved services for the nation”
Recent investments include €750 million from the IRU advocacy and £16 million from the UK government to transform truck parks. £16 million is just 6.4% of the £250 million and under 0.3% of the predicted £6.1 billion lost due to freight crimes in the UK, alone. Whilst we are pleased to see investments across Europe, it will be important to start seeing changes in action.
The £6.1 billion was calculated using data from the RHA. We took the estimated annual loss from freight crimes and divided by 12 to get an estimated monthly loss per month. We then multiplied this by 292 to calculate what the predicted amount would be by 2049 (24 years and 4 months / 292 months).
To calculate the impacts of inflation over this time period, we used Sep 2024 – Aug 2025 as our base year. For each subsequent year, we used the previous year’s annual loss and multiplied by our estimated inflation percentage, and added these all together to get our total figure. This could then give us the total predicted amount by 2049 but also taking into account inflationary increases for each year.
