Which way forward for Britain’s car and rail travel?

If you strip company cars out of the picture, private car mileage actually kept going up until 2007, albeit slowly.

This is what the report has to say about it: “The aggregate levelling off in average car mileage since the late 1990s appears to be almost entirely due to the reduced contribution of company car mileage.”

Then there is London. If you live there or you have visited recently you will know how good the public transport is – and how expensive the congestion charge and parking are.

The whole rail and bus network has been beefed up over the past few years. Against all predictions it even coped brilliantly with the Olympics.

So that is probably why driving mileage across the capital fell by 20% in the decade leading up to the recession.

Funnily enough, rural car mileage went up by 6% over the same period – and if you have ever tried to get a bus in the countryside, you will know why.

The research, which was actually commissioned by the RAC Foundation, the Independent Transport Commission, the Office of Rail Regulation and Transport Scotland, also looks at the corresponding boom on the trains over the same period.

There has been a 67% growth in rail travel in Britain since 1995 including a tripling of business use.

Interestingly, there has not been the equivalent rail boom in other Peak Car countries.

OK, so why does all this matter?

Well, it matters because the government wants to spend billions of pounds on roads, based on the assumption that there will be a 44% rise in traffic levels by 2035, mainly because of a big rise in the population.