Travelling 'taking up more time'

28/07/2011

By Shane Gladstone

Official figures have shown that Britons are spending more time travelling than they were in the mid-1990s.

The Department for Transport (DfT) statistics show that the travelling time for an average trip - which also includes walking - was up 12 per cent on figures for 1995-1997.
Last year the average journey took 22.9 minutes to complete, against 1995-1997's figure of 20.4 minutes.

However the figures also revealed that the number of trips taken by Britons fell to around a 35-year low, averaging 960 journeys per person.

During 2010 the average person covered 6,726 miles - down 7 per cent on 2005's high of 7,208, according to the study of 19,000 people in 8,100 households.

Travel by car accounted for more than half of all journeys made last year and 78 per cent of the distance travelled.

But the average length of each trip was on the rise, going from 6.4 miles in 1995/97 to 7.0 miles last year.

The figures also showed that average car mileage over the course of a year reached 8,430 in 2010, compared to 9,700 miles in 1995/97.

Also on the slide was the mileage racked up by commuters, which fell to 2,680 miles last year - a drop of 5 per cent since the mid-1990s.