Changing travel habits after lockdown

[yorksrob]

Owning a motorcar only makes sense if you can somehow incorporate usage of said car into your lifestyle, as an alternative to the transport system.

With an increase in telecommuting, home delivery of groceries and so forth, the 'base load' of travel that justifies a car is much diminished. With a general desire to do more stuff at home, combined with a lack of destinations for the foreseeable future, the leisure excursions will be also reduced. The car is a burden that many households will forego, and was a trend before this outbreak.

Government requests that people use alternatives to the transport system have, as we have already seen, the same success as requests that motorists switch to the self same transport system prior to the outbreak. The modest gains there took decades which suggests it will probably take another couple of decades to slow down and turn round the supertanker which was already steaming in the direction from private motoring towards professional transport systems. The electric cars which we rely on to be a practical alternative to buses and metro in cities are not yet at the mass market stage.

All this taken into account, I'd wager that the motor trade is rattled to a much greater degree than the transport services.

One would hope that the pandemic will have been resolved within two years and public transport will no longer be stigmatised.

 

[The Ham]

Owning a motorcar only makes sense if you can somehow incorporate usage of said car into your lifestyle, as an alternative to the transport system.

With an increase in telecommuting, home delivery of groceries and so forth, the 'base load' of travel that justifies a car is much diminished. With a general desire to do more stuff at home, combined with a lack of destinations for the foreseeable future, the leisure excursions will be also reduced. The car is a burden that many households will forego, and was a trend before this outbreak.

Government requests that people use alternatives to the transport system have, as we have already seen, the same success as requests that motorists switch to the self same transport system prior to the outbreak. The modest gains there took decades which suggests it will probably take another couple of decades to slow down and turn round the supertanker which was already steaming in the direction from private motoring towards professional transport systems. The electric cars which we rely on to be a practical alternative to buses and metro in cities are not yet at the mass market stage.

All this taken into account, I'd wager that the motor trade is rattled to a much greater degree than the transport services.

Indeed, cars are fairly expensive with high up front costs, so once you fall below about 4,000 miles a year it tends to be very hard to justify the expense (unless you are proper rural and not just in a location with a population of 4,000 to 10,000 which can often have fairly reasonable facilities, which when paired with online shopping allow a significant number of tasks to be undertaken without needing to travel more than a few miles).

Given that 85% of people live in urban settings (a settlement with over 10,000 people) then there's really quite a large potential for there to be many fewer cars than there currently are.

As examples (and I know not everyone will fall into this these examples, but there will be quite a few for whom it could be a viable option):

Couple where both work and both own cars, their work patterns changes so that they WFH 2 days a week. This then allows them to each share a car, other than one day when they both go into their offices and one of them uses public transport to do so.

A family with a stay at home patent, who has a car for the various activities (swimming, football, dance, etc.) the parent in paid employment then works from home 2 days a week allowing the stay at home parent to use the other car and reduce their car ownership to one from two.

A family where both travel long distances to work and pay a fair amount in childcare, by one of them stopping working (or more likely taking on a local part time job) they could reduce their costs significantly (one car rather than two, much reduced child care hours, fewer brought coffees and lunch, etc.).

The vast majority of people who own a car would be paying in excess of £2,000 a year when you add up all the costs of car ownership. £450 fuel, £250 insurance, £150 servicing & MOT, £140 VED, £60 tyres & other consumables, £50 parking, £900 purchase costs (including loan repayments), many paying significantly more than this. Whilst it's possible to reduce the costs a bit below this probably not by much.

However if you need £2,000 to run your car you actually need to earn more than this to be able to have the take home salary to pay that much, unless you aren't earning enough to pay any tax (although this has to be your income, in that if your other half who is a higher rate tax payer is paying for it then the money they have to earn to pay for it is about double the cost).

Few really appreciate just how much a car actually costs them to run.

The other thing to consider is that whilst fuel may not be much for each mile that you travel, that quite a few people do a lot of miles which they could do by other means. Such as to and from school (half a mile each way every day is 150 miles a year, given that my 2 year old can walk over a mile and it's not really much quicker than walking then there's not really much to be gained from doing so).

 

[squizzler]

It is interesting to see the battle lines starting be drawn over the future of UK mobility.

• On one hand the right wing press and central government are trying to convince people that motoring is a hygienic alternative to public transport systems. The Telegraph was reporting earlier this week that the government was trying to convince a mayor cinema chain to let its car parking be used for free to any motorist who used their car as a means of getting to work. The thinking seems to be that motorists are less likely to transmit disease if they travel about within their cage.
• On the other hand you have the metropolitan mayors ripping out highway space for active mobility such as biking and walking, and London is putting up its congestion charge. The logic is that people engaging in active travel live longer and healthier lives than passive motorists, and that good air quality leads to strong immune systems.

I personally feel that the second option where we provide conditions for a vigorous populace is the more convincing route long term. I also feel we are seeing a Thatcherite prejudice against public transport rising from the grave we thought it had been buried. For instance, those nations which have a strong public transport culture have opened their transport networks when when required within the phased reopening of their economies.

 

[The Ham]

It is interesting to see the battle lines starting be drawn over the future of UK mobility.

• On one hand the right wing press and central government are trying to convince people that motoring is a hygienic alternative to public transport systems. The Telegraph was reporting earlier this week that the government was trying to convince a mayor cinema chain to let its car parking be used for free to any motorist who used their car as a means of getting to work. The thinking seems to be that motorists are less likely to transmit disease if they travel about within their cage.
• On the other hand you have the metropolitan mayors ripping out highway space for active mobility such as biking and walking, and London is putting up its congestion charge. The logic is that people engaging in active travel live longer and healthier lives than passive motorists, and that good air quality leads to strong immune systems.

I personally feel that the second option where we provide conditions for a vigorous populace is the more convincing route long term. I also feel we are seeing a Thatcherite prejudice against public transport rising from the grave we thought it had been buried. For instance, those nations which have a strong public transport culture have opened their transport networks when when required within the phased reopening of their economies.

I know which one we have the road space (capacity) for...

 

[Tom B]

Within cities, spot hire services (e.g. Zipcar etc) are increasingly popular for those who do very few miles. They tend to not be a thing any further out than zone 2-3 in my experience, presumably since when one gets towards the suburbs, a car becomes more useful.

I've said for a while that the PCP boom is built on foolishness - some people are paying a fortune each month for the privilege of *renting* a car, not to mention the penalties for scratches or non-OE repairs which some of the lease firms charge. I've just looked online and would struggle to pay less than £250 for such a deal; I paid £250 in total for my current, admittedly old, daily car!

 

[Pat1105]

Within cities, spot hire services (e.g. Zipcar etc) are increasingly popular for those who do very few miles. They tend to not be a thing any further out than zone 2-3 in my experience, presumably since when one gets towards the suburbs, a car becomes more useful.

I've said for a while that the PCP boom is built on foolishness - some people are paying a fortune each month for the privilege of *renting* a car, not to mention the penalties for scratches or non-OE repairs which some of the lease firms charge. I've just looked online and would struggle to pay less than £250 for such a deal; I paid £250 in total for my current, admittedly old, daily car!

Personally, I think that if you buy a new car, PCP is the best way to do it. No need to worry about depreciation. Granted, you sometimes end up paying more than the cost to buy the car outright depending on the contract period and value of the car, but I suppose that’s better than losing at least half the value of the car when it comes to selling it and losing more money than you would on PCP. There are some very good deals on some cars. You say that you’d struggle to pay less than £250? Is that per month? There is a multitude of different models available for a lot less than that. You can pick up a brand new standard city car for around £100/month. Of course, buying used cars is always cheaper and depreciation is not always such an issue. However, you can’t guarantee that an older, used car will work perfectly. It is unlikely that it’d be covered under warranty, and repairs can be costly. It might seem cheap to buy, but when things start to go wrong, that’s when it becomes expensive.

 

[AM9]

I know which one we have the road space (capacity) for...

I saw on TV news yesterday the article about cities installing pop-up cycle lanes and improved pedestrian space. The reporter said that some members of the car lobby were describing it as a 'land grab'. Land grab from who to who? Such is the ignorance of whoever said that about who pays for roads, i.e. the public purse which is mainly fed by contributions from every tax payer. Highways do not belong to cars or their drivers any more than to cyclists or pedestrians.
I for one hope that the creation of more space for active travel does become permanent. At least a single lane queue of stationary cars only produces half of the pollution of two lanes of stationary cars.

 

[The Ham]

I saw on TV news yesterday the article about cities installing pop-up cycle lanes and improved pedestrian space. The reporter said that some members of the car lobby were describing it as a 'land grab'. Land grab from who to who? Such is the ignorance of whoever said that about who pays for roads, i.e. the public purse which is mainly fed by contributions from every tax payer. Highways do not belong to cars or their drivers any more than to cyclists or pedestrians.
I for one hope that the creation of more space for active travel does become permanent. At least a single lane queue of stationary cars only produces half of the pollution of two lanes of stationary cars.

Indeed the definition of public highway is land which is maintained at public expense and which the public may pass and repass.

There is no requirement to travel by any particular mode of transport as long as if you are using a vehicle that it's an approved type.

 

[AM9]

Indeed the definition of public highway is land which is maintained at public expense and which the public may pass and repass.

There is no requirement to travel by any particular mode of transport as long as if you are using a vehicle that it's an approved type.

And of course that you are using the space allocated to your mode of transport.

 

[squizzler]

The reporter said that some members of the car lobby were describing it as a 'land grab'. Land grab from who to who?

If this sort of language is gong to be invoked, it might be pointed out these changes are the restitution of land previously subject to a land grab by the motoring community in the middle of the 20th century. Residents of cities are entitled to some public space and breathable air, and history shows that motor traffic usually copes fine with the removal from neighbourhoods of even large elevated motorways, in numerous cites where this has been tried.

See this article: https://www.theguardian.com/environ...s-will-transform-transport-in-britains-cities

'A new normal': how coronavirus will transform transport in Britain's cities
Amid the confusion that followed Boris Johnson’s televised announcement easing the lockdown, Will Norman was clear about one thing – the way people move around cities would never be the same again.

“We are going to have a new normal coming out of this,” said London’s walking and cycling commissioner the morning after Johnson’s address to the nation. “Things are going to change whether we like it or not.” [article continues, no paywall]

And of course that you are using the space allocated to your mode of transport.

As an aside, in the UK we don't allocate space to different categories of road user as a rule - that would be un-British. Instead they ban certain things like driving cars on the footway, and that is why bike riders are quite entitled to mix it with the motorists even where there is a dedicated carriageway for bikes (which is often unserviceable in practice, making rigid allocation impractical).