The Centre of Economics and Research has conducted a study for the BBC and found that citizens of the U.K spend 15% of their disposable income on transport and of that 3.8% is on fares. The research also found that people now have to travel for 20 more minutes to reach their workplace than they used to 10 years ago. Hikes in rail fares and fuel duty have been pointed out as the chief causes of high travel costs.
These figures mean that British travellers pay more to travel than anywhere else in Europe, even though the British public transport network is in many ways inferior to those available on the mainland continent. With green taxes on air travel being discussed at government level, we can only expect travel costs to increase in the future.