Britons are more dependent on their cars than ever, driving farther to work, schools and shops, despite the Government’s policy of reducing the need to travel.

The distance we walk or cycle has fallen to a record low as we cease to use local services, according to a Department for Transport report.

Of the average 63 minutes spent travelling each day in 2005, 39 minutes were spent in a car and only 11 on foot. People are making fewer journeys but each journey covers a greater distance and takes longer because of rising congestion.

The average person spent 385 hours travelling in 2005, the longest time on record.

The report, entitled Transport Trends, helps to explain why 1.5 million motorists have signed a petition on Downing Street’s website opposing the Government’s proposals for nationwide congestion charging.

Ministers want people to switch to public transport or not travel at all, but life without a car has become unthinkable for the majority of the population.

There are now more homes with two or more cars than there are homes without a car.

In 1980, 41 per cent of households did not have access to a car. By 2004, this had fallen to 25 per cent. Over the same period, the proportion of homes with two or more cars doubled to 30 per cent.

Traffic has grown by 82 per cent since 1980 and the number of licensed motor vehicles has increased over the same period from 19 million to 33 million. In the past 10 years, the average shopping trip has increased from 3.9 miles to 4.3 miles. The average journey to work has grown from 8.2 to 8.7 miles and to school or college from 2.9 miles to 3.2 miles. Even discretionary journeys, such as to the gym, have increased in length, with the average leisure trip growing from 8.4 to 9.1 miles.

The average trip takes longer because extra traffic has reduced speeds at all times of day on A roads and motorways. The greatest reduction has been in the evening peak, during which the average speed is now only 51mph, compared with 55 mph a decade ago.

The Government’s efforts to encourage people to share cars also appear to be failing. The proportion of cars having only one occupant has risen slightly to 61 per cent.

Road congestion has helped to attract more people to rail travel. Trains carried more people last year than in any year since 1946. More than 1.1 billion journeys by train were made in 2006 and the annual rate of growth in rail travel doubled to 6.7 per cent, according to the Association of Train Operating Companies.

Long-distance rail journeys were up almost 10 per cent, spurred by a reduction of up to half an hour in the journey time between London, Birmingham and Manchester, while motorways became increasingly unreliable. The rising cost of rail travel appeared to have no effect on the growth in demand for train seats. The DfT report said the overall cost of motoring had fallen by more than 10 per cent in real terms since 1980 while bus fares had risen by 42 per cent and rail fares by 39 per cent.

Last year, households spent an average of £75 per week on all modes of transport.

Investment in roads has not kept pace with the growth in traffic. Spending fell, in today’s prices, from £6.4 billion in 1993 to less than £4 billion in 2000. It has risen since then but was still only £4.7 billion in 2005.

Jim Steer, a leading transport consultant and former director of the Strategic Rail Authority, said that there was an inherent contradiction between the Government’s aim of reducing the need to travel and its policies on health and education.

“The Government is encouraging people to vote with their feet to avoid sink schools and failing hospitals, but this is putting great pressure on the transport system as people travel further,” he said. “The view that bigger is better, whether it’s a hospital or a superstore, means people are losing their local services. The way to reverse demand for travel is to give people decent choices near their homes.”

Bus journeys in London have risen by 59 per cent in the past 20 years but have fallen in almost every other part of the country. The decline has been greatest in the main cities outside London, including Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds, where the number of journeys has halved since 1986. The Government admitted this week that it “will be a challenge” to meet its target of increasing bus use in every region by 2010.

The proportion of 5 to 10-year-olds going to school by car has increased from 38 to 43 per cent since 1997, while the proportion walking has fallen from 53 to 49 per cent.