The real costs of using public transport have risen since Labour came to power, while the costs of owning a car have gone down, the transport minister has conceded.
In a Parliamentary reply to a question from Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker, Sadiq Khan said that bus fares had risen by 24% in real terms between 1997 and 2009. Over the same period, the cost of rail tickets went up by 13%.
Meanwhile, the real cost of motoring - including the cost of buying a car - had fallen by 14% over the same period.
And although the Retail Prices Index, from which the other figures are taken, does not include plane travel, Mr Khan revealed that the average price of a domestic one-way air fare had also fallen - by 35% between 1997 and 2008.
In a statement on his website, Mr Baker outlines his belief that more should be invested in the rail network, and greater attention paid to ensuring that different modes of transport work efficiently together in an "integrated transport" concept.
"In our towns, we need to do more to encourage the use of buses, bicycles, and what my mother would call Shanks' pony," he adds.
"We need to do what we can to persuade people out of their cars and onto public transport, without penalising those who have no alternative."
In October 2009, tempers flared between pro- and anti-car groups over the relative value of investment in road and rail projects. A report by the Drivers' Alliance suggested that railway funding outstripped that for roads tenfold, once levels of use were taken into account.
However, the Campaign for Better Transport slammed the report's findings, while Network Rail called it "misleading".
