Many drivers in rural areas are paying less for their motoring than their counterparts in cities, according to new research.

Although journeys in urban areas are often shorter, high parking charges and reduced fuel efficiency due to traffic jams mean city driving comes at a premium.

Drivers in London pay on average twice as much for their journey to work than drivers in the South West and North East, research by the Centre for Economic and Business Research suggested.

During last year's fuel protests, rural motorists joined the campaign for a reduction in fuel tax, claiming they were worse off because they had to travel further for services and could not rely on public transport.

But the CEBR - whose research focused on the North East, the South West, Birmingham and Islington in north London - said many drivers in the country were not as badly off as they believed.

Insurance 'twice as high'

The centre said that motorists in rural areas drove - on average - about twice as far to work as their city counterparts.

But city drivers' fuel consumption was about twice as high, the centre found.

Case studies suggested that the urban driver stuck in stressful traffic jams on his way to work suffered a poorer quality of life than a driver in the country.

The cash burden on the urban driver was also found to be far heavier in terms of parking charges, which the centre said were three times more expensive in London than in county towns.

BBC Radio 4's Today programme interviewed one driver in Chippenham, Wiltshire, who said an annual parking ticket could be bought for �200.

But a second motorist from Wimbledon, London, told the programme he paid six times as much for an annual parking permit.

Insurance premiums in the capital are also almost twice as high as rural areas, said the centre.

Urban commuters may have superior access to public transport than their rural counterparts, but many complain that high demand and overcrowding drives them back to their vehicles.