Transport in Sheffield, England is developed around the city's unusual topography and medieval street plan. Once an isolated town, the transport infrastructure changed dramatically in the 19th and 20th centuries. The city now has road and rail links with the rest of the country, and road, bus and trams for local transport.

National and international travel

Sheffield is linked into the national motorway network via the M1 and M18 motorways. The M1 skirts the north-east of the city, linking Sheffield with London to the south and Leeds to the north; the M18 branches from the M1 close to Sheffield, linking the city with Doncaster and the Humber ports. The Sheffield Parkway connects the city centre with the motorways. There are eight park and ride sites for motorists visiting the city, three of them close to M1 junctions and offering connections to local public transport.

The topography of Sheffield makes it unsuitable for a large rail system. The Midland Main Line is the major railway through Sheffield, running in approximately a south-west to north-easterly direction. Other routes passing through the city include the Cross Country Route, the Penistone Line, the Dearne Valley Line, the Hope Valley Line, and the Hallam Line. The major station serving the city, Sheffield station, is on the south-eastern edge of the city centre. There is another major rail station at Meadowhall and four smaller suburban stations at Chapeltown, Darnall, Dore & Totley and Woodhouse. Passenger rail services through Sheffield are provided by CrossCountry, East Midlands Railway, Northern and TransPennine Express.UK rail network map showing which train companies operate on each route. Provided by National Rail Enquiries (URL accessed 28 December 2005)

Two airports serving Sheffield opened and closed since the 1990s. Sheffield City Airport, located in the Tinsley suburb east of the city centre, opened in 1997 but served its last commercial flight in 2002 and had its CAA licence revoked in 2008; it is now the site of a business park. The larger Doncaster Sheffield Airport, located east of the city centre at Finningley, opened on 28 April 2005 with the first flight to Palma de Mallorca, but closure of the airport was announced on 26 September 2022, with the last arrival on 4 November. Air travellers to and from Sheffield now take flights from Manchester Airport, Leeds Bradford Airport and East Midlands Airport, all within a 90-minute drive from the city.

London St Pancras station, the terminus of the Midland Main Line, connects with Eurostar services to Europe.

Sheffield is also served by a number of coach services. National Express provides most services, using Sheffield Interchange, Meadowhall Interchange and Meadowhead Bus stop as pick up/drop off points. Sheffield Interchange handles most services and is the start point/terminus for a number of them. Sheffield is connected to London Victoria Coach Station by the 560 - 564 services, with Sheffield serving as the terminus/starting point on some occasions (on others, it will be Rotherham, Barnsley, Leeds or Halifax).

Being at the confluence of several natural waterways, the development of a canal system marked an important evolution in the city's transport network, initially for commercial use and, more recently, for leisure activities. The Sheffield and South Yorkshire Navigation (S&SY) is a system of navigable inland waterways (canals and canalised rivers) in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, England.

Chiefly based on the River Don, it runs for a length of 43 miles (69 km) and has 29 locks. It connects Sheffield, Rotherham, and Doncaster with the River Trent at Keadby and (via the New Junction Canal) the Aire and Calder Navigation.

Travel data +Trips in Sheffield, Sheffield City Council monitoring, 2017ModeShareTrips per dayCar/taxi57.1%504,898Bus/coach15.4%135,768Walk7.2%63,953Light goods vehicle7.2%63,753Tram5.8%50,952Rail4.4%38,628Medium goods vehicle1.1%9,969Cycle0.8%6,718Heavy goods vehicle0.7%6,382Motorcycle0.4%3,696

Car and van ownership 67% of households in Sheffield have access to a car or van. This ranks 45th lowest access of 348 local authorities in England and Wales.

Ownership is unequally distributed across the city, from 40% of households in Central ward having at least one vehicle, to 87% in Ecclesall ward.

Local travel

Roads The A57 and A61 roads are the major trunk roads through Sheffield. These run east–west and north–south, respectively, crossing in the city centre. Other major roads generally radiate spoke-like from the city centre. An inner ring road, mostly constructed in the 1970s and extended to form a complete ring in 2007–2008, allows traffic to avoid the city centre, and an outer "ring road" runs around the eastern edge of the city. The inner ring-road follows St Mary's Road, Upper Hanover Street and then traverses Netherthorpe, to reach Shalesmoor. The Sheffield Outer Ring Road follows much of Prince of Wales Road from 'Arena Square' in Carbrook to Greenhill at Greenhill roundabout where it joins the A61.

Sheffield City Council is belatedly introducing a clean air zone from early 2023, after delaying the plans in 2020. Some polluting taxis and vans will be charged £10/day to enter the city, while buses and HGVs which do not meet the standards will be charged £50/day. The charge would apply to vehicles within the ring road which do not meet Euro 4 standards for petrol and Euro 6 standards for diesel.

Public transport

Public transport is provided by trams and buses. The Tramway system is known as the Sheffield Supertram. It was constructed in the early 1990s, with the first section opening in 1994 and consists of three spokes that run from the city centre out to Hillsborough, Halfway, and Meadowhall Centre.Stagecoach Supertram:About Us (URL accessed 28 December 2005)

A sizeable bus infrastructure operates from a main hub at Sheffield Interchange. Other bus stations lie at Meadowhall, Hillsborough, and Crystal Peaks.

A flurry of new operators were created after deregulation in the 1980s. The majority of these gradually amalgamated, leaving First South Yorkshire (formerly Mainline and First Mainline) owned by to operate most of the city's buses up until December 2005, when Stagecoach took over Yorkshire Traction (which had previously taken over Yorkshire Terrier, creating Stagecoach Sheffield). Stagecoach Yorkshire, Stagecoach in Chesterfield, Stagecoach in Mansfield, Veolia Transport (Operating for Travel South Yorkshire), Sheffield Community Transport, Hulleys of Baslow, Powell's Co, K&H Doyle also operating bus routes in the city. A city centre free bus service also runs every 7 minutes, known as the FreeBee.

There is also the Bus Rapid Transit North route between Sheffield and Maltby via Rotherham. In 2008, the bus rapid transit scheme was approved by the Yorkshire and Humber Assembly's Regional Transport Board and there were plans for two routes; one (the Northern route) to Rotherham via Meadowhall and Templeborough, and the other via the developing employment centre and Waverley. The route between Sheffield and Maltby was approved in 2013 with construction commencing in January 2014, involving the construction of the new 800m Tinsley Road Link between Meadowhall and the A6178 road. The route opened in September 2016.

Travel South Yorkshire, the current (as of 2023) transport body serving Sheffield, lists eight park and ride sites for the city; all of them are outside tram stops or railway stations.

Cycling For cycling, although the city has a more undulating topography, Sheffield is compact. It is on the Trans-Pennine Trail, a National Cycle Network route running from Southport in the north-west to Hornsea in the East Riding, and has a developing Strategic Cycle Network within the city. Sheffield is close to the Peak District National Park, an area popular with both on and off-road cyclists.

History Early history

The earliest known roads in the Sheffield area date from the Roman occupation of Britain between 43 and 410 AD. The Romans built a fort at Templeborough c55. Two roads were built to this fort. Icknield Street ran south towards Derby, and another road ran south-west to Brough-on-Noe near Hope in Derbyshire. (wikisource)Leader, The Highways and Byways of Old Sheffield The exact course of these roads is unknown but both are likely to have passed within the modern boundaries Sheffield.Possible courses for these roads are shown on a map of Roman roads in Britain In the centuries after the end of the Roman occupation the Sheffield area was at the border of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of Northumbria and Mercia. The village of Dore (literally a Door) lay on an important route between these kingdoms.Vickers, Old Sheffield Town, pp. 64–68

Following the Norman Conquest of England a castle was established in the village of Sheffield c1150. Sheffield began to grow into a small town, the first bridge was built over the River Don (Lady's Bridge) and the street pattern that would persist for centuries was laid out. Lady's Bridge may represent the main route out of Sheffield in this era, travellers followed the Wicker and then climbed Spital Hill to follow an ancient Dyke called the "Roman Rig" to Mexborough. This may be the route into Sheffield described in Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe. A route to the south passing through Little Sheffield, Heeley, and Newfield Green, to Gleadless Moor existed by 1692, but was a difficult route to follow. There was also a route to the west, known as Long Causeway, that followed the old Roman Road toward Stanage Edge, however Sheffield remained relatively secluded, a fact which may have influenced the choice of Sheffield for the imprisonment of Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1570.Vickers, Old Sheffield Town, pp. 11–13

In the 18th century, turnpike roads were built improving Sheffield's connections with the outside world.Descriptions of the routes that the turnpike roads followed can be found in Leader, The Highways and Byways of Old Sheffield. A turnpike to Chesterfield was built in 1756 and another through Ringinglow to Chapel-en-le-Frith or Buxton was constructed in 1758. Roads were also built to Barnsley, Tickhill, Worksop, Intake and Penistone. The Baslow turnpike (Abbeydale Road) opened in 1805 and Glossop Road opened in 1821. In 1774 a wooden waggonway was laid over a distance of 2 miles from the Duke of Norfolk's collieries into the town, this was later relaid with cast-iron L-shaped rails by John Curr; one of the earliest railways to use this type of rails.

19th century