The Value to Business of Smarter Travel
Ben Savours
How much time can be saved in your workday through smarter business travel? Does providing employees with access to a work-owned ride-hailing account encourage them to meet more clients? Are workers more productive while taking an Uber than through other means of transport?
Public First partnered with Uber for Business to examine the lay of the land when it comes to business travel in the UK, measuring travel efficiency, sustainability, business revenue growth, safety and economic growth.
Our economists and pollsters got together to design the best approach for evaluating the impact of ride-hailing and food-delivery services on UK businesses. We surveyed employees with access to an Uber for Business account to explore the range of impacts app-based services have on workers, from making travel easier to book, more convenient, faster and less stressful, to enabling them to order catering for in-house client meetings. We also surveyed business managers to understand how an Uber for Business account was benefiting the business more broadly, from cost savings through greater monitoring and control to reduced time spent processing expenses. These research methods produced some interesting findings:
- 61% of business managers say Uber for Business is an efficient, cost-effective solution
- 51% of employees say Uber for Business allows them to spend more time focused on work whilst travelling
- 72% of employees say Uber helps them do their job effectively
Finally, to quantify the impact of Uber for Business in 2025, we combined our survey results with internal data provided by Uber to estimate the value of time savings, productivity gains, incremental revenue, GVA and emissions reductions.
Some of our key findings from the study were:
- Uber for Business saved £59.7 million worth of employee hours for UK businesses in 2025, through reduced booking, waiting, expensing and journey times.
- Uber for Business led to 19 hours of additional productive work during journeys, thanks to the way a ride-hailing trip creates a convenient window of uninterrupted work.
- Uber for Business led to 360,000 more in-person client meetings in 2025, which we estimate generated £125 million of additional revenue for British businesses.
Follow the link to download our full UK factsheet.