This is because people do not add in the opportunity cost when they look at the price of travelling from A to B. Time spent driving a car is wasted time that can be devoted to nothing other than concentrating on driving (remember that even hands-free mobile phone calls are frowned upon and indeed banned by many organisations now).

Now that mobile computing is an established part of business practice and trains increasingly have WiFi hot spots built into the carriages travel by train offers an opportunity to be productive while on the move.

The Virgin report uses the example of a trip from London to Manchester. The 400 mile round trip would cost £160 (at 40p/mile) if travelled by car and £208 on the train with an open return or a whopping £317 if you wanted to travel first/business class.

But the university has calculated that an employee would “squander” 66% more time while driving compared with sitting working on a laptop on the train. If you factor in a cost of £26/hour for the salary of the employee (let’s assume they earn £50k p.a.) then the eight to ten hours he/she will waste on the return journey by car adds anything up to £260 onto the cost.

Alternatively at least 3 hours of his/her four and a half hour return train journey could be productive.

Of course the best option would be to book a super saver train ticket in advance for a paltry £63 and end up £360 better off than if you had driven. Since employees notch up 27 million miles every year the savings could be staggering and trains emit the second lowest level of greenhouse gasses per passenger of all transport options.