Small & medium business

According to a report the group issued this week, 70 per cent of business travellers believe high-speed rail should be a government priority over airport expansion.

I think that few people who have used high-speed rail services would disagree. When everything goes according to plan (and with new lines, it mostly does) the experience of turning up to a station ten minutes before your train leaves and being right in the centre of the city you need to get to quickly is much less stressful than its airport equivalent.

Over the weekend, for example, I journeyed from London to Derby – a distance of 112 miles – in one hour and thirty minutes. This is less than the time that many people take to get into work, and that’s without the benefit of the kind of dedicated high-speed line that, for example, is now reducing Kentish commute times.

Using rail travel also means that a larger proportion of your journey time is spent sat down, rather than checking in and out, collecting tickets and bags, and hanging around at terminals. This means you have more opportunity to do productive work on your journey.

But if you’re going to do work, it’s important to ensure that you have the right tools for the job with you. Make sure you have mobile internet: although reception in rural areas isn’t going to be as good as in a city, you should still have a few windows of opportunity for sending and receiving email.

A good laptop is, of course, an essential. But make sure you also have the ability to synchronise files with your office network, via services like Dropbox or Sugarsync, so you can be sure you have the latest versions of documents your need.

But the one essential that I would never travel without is my smartphone. Even on a short journey where work isn’t a priority, it allows me to ensure that there’s no big backlog of email waiting for me when I go back into the office. That, alone, is a benefit to my peace of mind.

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