section_path: Economy/Transport
section_name: Transport
paragraph_text: Transport
  
  A radial road network totals 29,145 miles (46,904 km) of main roads, 2,173 miles (3,497 km) of motorways and 213,750 miles (344,000 km) of paved roads. The M25, encircling London, is the largest and busiest bypass in the world. In 2024 there were a total of 41.7 million licensed vehicles in the UK.
  
  The UK has an extensive railway network of 10,072 miles (16,209 km). In Great Britain, the British Rail network was privatised between 1994 and 1997, followed by a rapid rise in passengers. Great British Railways is a planned state-owned public body that will oversee rail transport in Great Britain. The UK was ranked eighth amongst national European rail systems in the 2017 European Railway Performance Index assessing intensity of use, quality of service and safety.
  
  The UK has a train direct from London to Paris which takes 2 hours and 16 minutes called the Eurostar, it travels through the Channel Tunnel under the English Channel, at 23.5 miles long it is the world's longest undersea tunnel. There is also a car service through the tunnel to France called LeShuttle. The Elizabeth line, a rail link running between East and West London, was named in honour of Queen Elizabeth II in 2016 and opened in 2022. It was Europe's largest construction project at the time and is estimated to bring in £42 billion to the UK economy. Another major infrastructure project is High Speed 2 (HS2), a new high speed railway under construction. It will link London with Birmingham, with the potential to extend further north and capable of speeds of up to 225 mph.
  
  In 2023 there were 4 billion bus journeys in the UK, 1.8 billion of which were in London. The red double-decker bus has entered popular culture as an internationally recognised icon of London and England. The London bus network is extensive, with over 6,800 scheduled services every weekday carrying about 6 million passengers on over 700 different routes, making it one of the most extensive bus systems in the world and the largest in Europe.
  
  During 2024 British airports handled a total of nearly 292.5 million passengers. In that period the three largest airports were London Heathrow Airport (83.9 million passengers), Gatwick Airport (43.2 million passengers) and Manchester Airport (30.8 million passengers). London Heathrow Airport, located 15 miles (24 km) west of the capital, is the world's second-busiest airport by international passenger traffic and has the most international passenger traffic of any airport in the world; it is the hub for the UK flag carrier British Airways, as well as Virgin Atlantic. During 2023, 18.3 million passengers travelled internationally by rail and 18.1 million travelled internationally by sea.