LONDON, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- Just 0.5 percent of all vehicles on British roads have ultra-low emission engines, an annual survey conducted by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) revealed Monday.
Out of almost 40 million vehicles licensed in Britain at the end of 2018, just around 200,000, or 0.5 percent, were ultra-low emission vehicles (ULEVs).
Last year, 64,000 ULEVs were registered for the first time in Britain, an increase of 20 percent compared with 2017, and making up 2.1 percent of all new vehicle registrations.
New registrations of petrol-fuelled cars continued to increase in 2018, while diesel car registrations continued to decrease, leading to the share of diesel in all new registrations falling for the first time in 20 years, ONS added.
The survey showed that vehicles traveled about 528 billion kms on Britain's roads in 2018, an increase of 29 percent compared with 1990, when 410 billion kms were traveled. Just over three-quarters of all road journeys in 2018 were made by passenger vehicles and taxis.
Despite the extra kilometers traveled, the study showed that the total amount of fuel used for road transport remained relatively stable between 1990 and 2017, thanks to the improved fuel efficiency of newer vehicles.
While the number of petrol vehicles has declined, over the same period the use of diesel cars has increased.
In 2017, almost 90 percent of all petrol-powered vehicles and 40 percent of all diesel vehicles were privately owned in Britain. Heavy goods vehicles are almost exclusively fueled with diesel.
ONS said greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from road transport made up around a fifth of Britain's total GHG emissions in 2017.
Emissions of many pollutants that are particularly damaging to health (carbon monoxide, particulate matter and nitrogen oxides) have been reduced following the introduction of increasingly stringent exhaust emission limits, added ONS.
"Reducing emissions from road transport remains a significant challenge as the UK looks to reach net zero emissions by 2050," warned the ONS study.
Although Britain's total GHG emissions have fallen by 32 percent from 1990 to 2017, GHG emissions from road transport have increased by 6 percent over the same period.
