40 per cent of journeys still made by car

Almost 40 per cent of the 28 million journeys made each day in the capital last year were made by car, while 37 per cent were made either by bus, Tube, train or tram. The rest were by foot or bicycle.

Car use is particularly high in outer London, where campaigners claim as few as 13 per cent of journeys are made by public transport.

However, a record numbers of journeys are being made on the Tube (up to four million a day) and buses (around 6.5 million on weekdays). Before Mayor Ken Livingstone's election in 2000 and his investment in public transport, it accounted for 32 per cent of journeys.

Experts said today the annual London Travel Report figures showed how vital it was to invest in weakpublic transport links in outer London.

Other key findings include:

Almost one million more journeys were made in London than in the previous year.

Londoners spent 39 minutes a day travelling to work - almost double the 20-minute average in the rest of Britain.

The average number of passengers on a bus rose above 15 for the first time.

Oyster cards account for 85 per cent of bus trips and 66 per cent of Underground journeys.

231 people were killed and 3,715 seriously injured on the capital's roads.

1.1 million people enter central London between 7am and 10am on an average weekday.

The report, published by Transport for London, shows that the car's popularity is followed by walking (20 per cent), buses and trams (19 per cent), the Tube (10 per cent), rail (eight per cent) and bicycles (two per cent).

Of those who work in central London, 80 per cent travelled by public transport. Just 11 per cent used a car. In outer London 47 per cent drove to work.

Traffic speeds during the morning peak in central London have fallen from 10.6mph following the introduction of the congestion charge in 2003 to 9.3mph. But there are 36 per cent fewer cars entering the zone than before 2003.

Richard Bourn, spokesman for the Campaign for Better Transport, praised the "revolution" in the use of Oyster cards and said central London traffic speeds had decreased because of the rightful increase in space given to bus and cycle lanes and wider pavements.

But he said TfL was not being sufficiently ambitious in the suburbs, where its aim was only to reduce the rate of growth in car use rather than seeking a realterms reduction.

Mr Bourn said: "These overall figures disguise the fact that traffic is continuing to grow in some outer London boroughs. They also don't reveal that in outer London the proportion of journeys made by public transport is still remarkably low, 13 per cent according to figures we produced last year."

Passengers typically have to wait five and a half minutes for a " highfrequency" bus - services with at least five an hour - but only 78 per cent run on time.

Women aged 17 to 24 were most likely to use buses.