As gas prices rise, driving for business changes

— -- Even though he drives a fuel-efficient car, real estate agent Harlan Comee of Yorba Linda, Calif., says that unrelenting gas-price increases are forcing him to rethink his sales strategy.

He's narrowed his geographic focus when looking for new homes to represent. And when with clients, he tries to show as many properties in one area as possible to curb some of the back-and-forth trips he used to make. "Now, I try to say, 'We're going to concentrate on the north today,' " he says.

Soaring gas prices are forcing employees — and employers — to adjust the way they plan and execute business trips within the USA.

A typical 100-mile sales call costs about $3 more than a year ago, says Lee Czarapata of Runzheimer International, a management consulting firm that tracks travel costs. (The $3 figure assumes the sales representative is driving a midsize, four-door sedan partly in the city and partly on the freeway and gets about 21.5 miles per gallon.) "That doesn't seem like a lot," he says. "But when you've got hundreds or thousands of drivers out there doing it every day, it adds up."

More companies are buying smaller vehicles — a four-cylinder sedan instead of a six-cylinder one, for instance — and more are asking about hybrid vehicles that run partly on electricity, says Gregory Corrigan, a vice president of PHH Arval, a Baltimore-based company that manages corporate fleets.

"They're trying to turn every rock they can to cut fuel costs," he says.

Some companies are also postponing the replacement of fleet vehicles because they're spending more money on operations, says Ruth Alfson, a fleet manager at Serco, which manages corporate and government fleets.

But most business travelers are making smaller adjustments to their routines, such as consolidating trips, replacing some visits with e-mails or conference calls, or driving out of their way to find the cheapest pumps.

Some ways that companies and travelers are changing business travel behavior: