Changing patterns of car use in the last twenty years has seen millions of women become drivers, a report has concluded.

The RAC Foundation’s On the Move study also stated the number of young male drivers  had sharply declined by 14%, while women licence owners increased by exactly the same number.

Factors for change include a decline in company car use by 50%, home office usage, shifts to rail and public transport, and a perceived cultural shift in the aspirational value of owning a vehicle.

However, the figures for car traffic are roughly static for the last two decades, and the national decline is only due to a large reduction of car use inside London since the start of the recession in 2008.

Sustainable transport charities have claimed the report illustrates a drop-off in car usage and take issue with Department for Transport strategies to expand road networks at the expense of investment in public and sustainable transport modes.

But the RAC Foundation rebuffed ‘catch-all headlines’, and drew an opposing view on decline in car usage.

Professor Stephen Glaister, director of the RAC Foundation, told Surveyor: ‘Prior to the recession and outside London, essentially we have all been driving more and not less.

‘Strip out the big drop in company car use and it would be a brave person who suggested individual driving has peaked and is in terminal decline.

‘But though we now know what has been happening, we do not necessarily know why. The big question is what will happen to young men who as a group have reduced both their mileage and licence holding. We don’t yet have an answer and this is where more research should be done.

‘Whatever you and I do as individuals is likely to be dwarfed by the impact of the change in population.’