The Freight Transport Association (FTA) has raised concerns over discrepancies between industry opinion and government statistics relating to journey times for the nation's freight operators. 

This comes in the wake of the publication of official figures from Highways England, which show that journey time reliability is marginally improved over previous years, but is still below 80 per cent. 

It was also noted that member firms of the FTA consistently report that journey reliability has been getting worse. 

Head of road network management policy at the FTA Malcolm Bingham emphasised the fact that this is not in line with official reports. 

"An efficient roads network is essential if the economy is to continue to grow - Highways England therefore must maintain focus on improving reliability and working with the freight industry to ensure improvements can be delivered," he commented. 

Mr Bingham added that all efforts should be made to ensure this has the minimum impact on business.