Is public transport cheaper?

[GodAtum]

Is public transport cheaper then the car or is it an urban myth?

 

[EM2]

Yes and no.
It depends what costs you factor into the car journey. If you just say petrol then probably not, but if you include the fraction of the year's tax, insurance, servicing and depreciation into it as well, then probably not. Of course, that also depends on the car, those figures will all be much higher for a Rolls-Royce Phantom than a Nissan Micra.
Plus things like the age of the car, my car would have no depreciation because it's pretty much reached its nadir in terms of value.

And then of course, what type of public transport journey is it? A local bus trip? Or a long-distance train journey? Is it a walk-up fare? Or an Advance ticket? Or maybe a season ticket?

 

[Greenback]

In my case, it;s cheaper to pay for public transport than to get a second family car.

I calculate this by adding together the annual running costs, plus the capital cost of purchase, and then comparing that with the figure I spend on public transport.

My annual season ticket costs £850. Running costs of the car alone are more than that.

Of course everyone is in a different position - we use Mrs G's car for shopping and visitng relatives, but we don't need two cars! Others may do. It's not possible to give a yes or no answer in general.

 

[Metroland]

As somebody who has owned a car and not owned a car for various reason at various times, it's considerably cheaper without one. My travel costs are around £500-£1000 per year, compared to £5-6,000 per year with one. £5000k I can spend on other things.

The average cost for running a car in the UK is £6k per year, and 50p a mile if you are doing 12,000 miles, rising to 77p a mile if you are doing 8,000.

Yes you can get bangers, but I prefer something more reliable.

Like-for-like public transport can be cheaper (as low as 10p a mile or less for rovers and advance tickets) but it depends on the times, tickets, how many people are in the car, whether you are travelling on rovers, group save or rail cards, on or off peak and the type of car.

Most journeys in the UK are less than 5 miles, doing school runs, to the shops and so on. When you don't have a car, you tend to walk (possibly cycle more) for these journeys, which is free, or virtually free. The added bonus is of course health benefits. The internet really helps these days for shopping, so there's not all that many times, unless you live out in the middle of nowhere or reach those sorts of places you miss having a car.

Ideally, in real life, if you can afford a car or can drive, I'd argue for a careful balance for walking, using public transport and possibly cycling, as well as using the car. That way you get all the convenience (driving in cities isn't that convenient, but out in the middle of the sticks it is), health benefits, reduce congestion, and you save some money.

 

[Greenback]

I tend to agree, particulalry about walking more and the health benefits. I tend to walk a lot, and I am much more likely to walk somewhere than my wife, who does need a car as her job is spread over four different locations in largely rural Carmarthenshire. I dar esay that if we lived in worked in a large city, we wouldn't need, or have to run a car at all.

 

[GodAtum]

I might have to move to Bude in Cornwall and I really dread it because I would have to have a car! I've been so used to living in London where we take public transport for granted!

Even if living in London costs more, because I don't have a car it would work out the same living in a cheaper area and having a car.

 

[imagination]

The average british car owner devotes every year "over 500 hours to earn the money first to buy the car and to pay for petrol, insurance, repairs and parking", "more than 250 hours... to a myriad of small tasks associated with a car" and "100 hours a year to earn the money to pay the extra building society interest because he has chosen a house with a garage rather than one without".

So that's 850 hours of each year of your life devoted to car ownership. And that's not counting the time you actually spend in the car itself. So ask yourself - do you travel by public transport so much that it takes up over 850 hours per year to pay for it? Because if not then you are probably better off (on a financial measure anyway) if you don't have a car.

Quotations above are from Lynn Sloman (2006) Car Sick

 

[The Barlow Boy]

Now offset that with the sheer joy of being able to travel anywhere at any time without consulting a timetable or having a wet walk to a station or a cold wait for a bus. Your own personalised transport, no drunks, no screaming kids, no couples having a domestic, no intimidating football "fans", no replacement bus because it's Sunday. A pay as you go fixed price journey.

 

[imagination]

^some of those make up why I put in the bit in brackets about on a financial measure.

However, many of the things you mentioned above are very rare. I've used trains all my life and would estimate that I've been on about 5-7000 trains in my life. I've never once had to get a replacement bus service, only once ever been on a train with football fan problems, only twice in memory been on (a part of) a train where drunks have been a significant problem, never been in a situation where I've been distracted by "couples having a domestic". You get the point.

I have always been able to get to almost everywhere I have wanted to go by train/bus/cycling/walking too. And I know the timetables for journeys I take more than once or twice off by heart.

Having a wet walk to a station or a cold wait for a bus (or vice versa), however, is something that happens rather often.

 

[Failed Unit]

Unfortunately owning a car is now not really an option many people can live without. Town planning means that most supermarkets require you to have a car as they are built on retail parks with only access by a car. New housing estates are built but it is often some time afterwards before public transport appears. It is the same story with many employers who have moved from the city centre to out of town estates with limited public transport.

Got into the rural areas with no public transport at all!

For me it is a 5 mile cycle ride to Market Rasen which I am happy to do, the nearest shop is 3 miles away (not very practical to carry your shopping on a bike but I guess we have internet shopping now).

So yes I have a car, the fixed costs are high but I need to pay them if it turns a wheel or not so I am guilty of not taking the full costs of a car in account when I am planning a journey just the petrol. (Which on long journey can still be more than the train ticket but on short journey's isn't). I have never worked out if I use taxi's on the journeys the car is the only real option if it will be cheaper than the fixed cost over the year.

 

[theblackwatch]

So that's 850 hours of each year of your life devoted to car ownership. And that's not counting the time you actually spend in the car itself. So ask yourself - do you travel by public transport so much that it takes up over 850 hours per year to pay for it? Because if not then you are probably better off (on a financial measure anyway) if you don't have a car.

Equally worth taking into account though:

By car, it takes me around 25 minutes each direction to and from work, that's 50 minutes a day or 4 hrs 10 per week.

If I were to do the above by public transport, firstly it is a 20 minute walk to the bus stop where the bus which takes me to my work goes from, and this is followed by a 41 minute bus journey - so my journey takes an extra 36 minutes each way, or 6 hrs per week. That's (based on 45 weeks at work a year) 270 of those hours saved. Adding the cost of the bus fare equates to another 140 of those hours. So - almost half those costs would be necessary by just the commute to work if I did it by public transport.

On top of that, if I didn't have a car, I would have to use (and pay for) hotels for a hell of a lot more trips. 07.00 at Birmingham - car or train and hotel?

 

[imagination]

True, but far more people take the car to work when going by public transport would be faster than vice versa.

Of course, things do depend on individual situations (though almost everyone is inclined to think of cars as far more important to them personally than they really are)

 

[Failed Unit]

Going to work is always an interesting situation to be honest.

I had a commute that was about equal by car and rail.

Rail
Walk to station 5 minutes, 30 minutes train, 20 minutes walk to the office.
Pro's - No driving so 30 minutes each way reading the paper
Con - You get very wet in 20 minutes!
Price - £2000 per annum (approx)
Car
About 1 hour door-2-door.
Pro's - No people with colds, Personal music players that are not personal, and always get a seat.
Con's - Traffic is very unpredicatable it could on bad days take 2 hours, you had to allow a greater safety margin than by rail.
Price - £1600 (Petrol only)

I prefer the train myself, others prefer the car, I know the cars price is probably more when you take into account the share of the fixed costs but most people don't bother. If I had to pay for car parking that would have cost as much as the rail ticket alone. It was a critism of the company from us public transport users when they decided to provide everyone with free parking as it encouraged them not to use public transport, not something that a company should be doing when it is trying to reduce its carbon output - but I guess employees turning from public transport to cars won't go on the companies figures!

 

[imagination]

It costs roughly £750 per year to maintain a space in a car park. So demand that added on to your wages. After all, that's how much you are saving them by not using the car.

Of course, many car parks would charge far more than that but that's because they want to make money out of it. Plus that figure isnt including any ticket machines etc.

 

[Zoe]

It costs roughly £750 per year to maintain a space in a car park. So demand that added on to your wages. After all, that's how much you are saving them by not using the car.

But add to that hours lost to to public transport delays/cancellations.

 

[theblackwatch]

Given my employer has never spent any money maintaining the space where I park my car sine I started working in that office in 2003, where on earth do you get that figure from!?

 

[Nightrider]

Cost is one thing, pleasure is another.

I lost the pleasure part of driving many years ago.

 

[imagination]

Given my employer has never spent any money maintaining the space where I park my car sine I started working in that office in 2003, where on earth do you get that figure from!?

Sorry it wasnt £750, it was £500. And it is from the Pfizer r&d centre in Sandwich, Kent, where they have since decided to pay out employees £2 per day if they travel in by public transport, after working out that cost (which both helped the environment, saved the company money, and gave their employees more money).

The £500 figure covers the costs per parking space of maintenance and staffing the car park.

 

[Metroland]

I wonder if there is any rail enthusiasts that never go anywhere by train? There's certainly railwaymen! You see some enthusiasts turn up at preserved railways and take pictures and never get on the train too, most odd.

Not entirely sure the argument sits square about losing time to public transport delays with the amount of congestion we have in this country. Or the idea that having your own space is actually superior in some way. I don't regard sitting at home drinking superior compared to going to a pub, sometimes it's nice to get out and mingle, sometimes its nice to sit at home!

I enjoy driving, but enjoy train travel too. I shall be going to the Midlands tomorrow, and there is something about flying through the countryside at over a ton, with the English countryside racing by, book and drink in hand, possibly the odd bit of sneaky reading on RUK on the phone!

 

[Zoe]

I wonder if there is any rail enthusiasts that never go anywhere by train? There's certainly railwaymen! You see some enthusiasts turn up at preserved railways and take pictures and never get on the train too, most odd.

Not everyone wants to pack onto a Voyager. If XC would run trains more suitable for the route, I expact more rail enthusiasts would use them.

 

[Metroland]

I remember reading Virgin's answer to that, at the time.

"We don't really care what rail enthusiasts think, we have more people paying to travel on our trains, and that's all that matters.'

Maybe this is why enthusiasts should never run railways?

 

[Zoe]

It's not just rail enthusiasts that have been put off travelling by rail due to the Voyagers though.

 

[Metroland]

Well there aren't to everyone's tastes, I don't rate them very highly either, but I guess there have been rises in passenger numbers, although how many more passengers they would have got by doubling the service of HSTs/LH trains, we shall never know.

 

[Vulcan]

I know it to cost £40 to fill my car's fuel tank from when its low, and I know it did the 300 mile journey from Bradford to here on the sunny south coast on one tank, so £80 for a round trip? £79 return on crosscountrytrains.co.uk, public transport wins by £1!

 

[Geezertronic]

There are some journeys I have to do for work that I prefer to use the car and some where I prefer to use the train (including Tube/DLR etc...).

Cost does not really come into it for me since my company pay travel expenses, just as long as I don't extract the urine

From my point of view, it may be more expensive for me to get the Train/Tube/DLR to Docklands than drive, but it takes 1 1/2 hours less than I can do it by car so they get more productivity out of me

It actually takes me longer to drive from Birmingham to London Docklands (138 miles approx - 3 1/2 hours) than it does to drive from Birmingham to Bridgend (142 miles approx - 2 1/2 hours)

 

[starrymarkb]

I wonder if there is any rail enthusiasts that never go anywhere by train? There's certainly railwaymen! You see some enthusiasts turn up at preserved railways and take pictures and never get on the train too, most odd.

Me - though for the most part it's down to lack of money for trips, I hardly drive these days and am only really keeping the car for job hunting and getting to the parents. Most things are within walking distance of my flat (5 mins to City centre, Co-op Supermarket at the end of the road, Odeon 3 mins walk, decent pubs 5-15 mins walk, crappy pubs much nearer, work is 5 mins away too)

My only rail trip this year has been one of two to Dawlish (the other we drove for as it was a Sunday and the 2 hourly train time didn't suit), my only other uses of Public Transport were getting the bus to Countess Wear so get to the Turf Pub, and the Ferry back to the Double Locks. Pretty much everything else I've walked for.

Mind you I might be adding a bike if no-one claims the one dumped outside my flat last week
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Not everyone wants to pack onto a Voyager. If XC would run trains more suitable for the route, I expact more rail enthusiasts would use them.

As long as it isn't their awful HSTs with the back breaking seats. I'd rather have the Voyager if so! FGW seats are much more comfortable IMO

 

[ainsworth74]

As long as it isn't their awful HSTs with the back breaking seats. I'd rather have the Voyager if so!

Whereas I would take the XC HST over a Voyager any day of the week!

 

[Tom B]

Not so long ago I did a daily journey which took 35 minutes by car or 2h 30m by bus/train - more if the bus didn't turn up and you missed the train! Plus I couldn't stay an extra 10 minutes after my shift, I had to dash off for the train back, as the next one wasn't for an hour. Thanks, deregulated transport!

 

[GB]

For me, the sheer fact that my car is sitting right out side ready for me to go anywhere anytime I like wins over public transport everytime.

When I move to my new place it is literally a two minute walk to a mainline station so I intend to use the trains to get to work at least once a week and I will start to cycle places again, however I will not be getting rid of my car any time soon!

 

[spoony]

Where I am yes. It costs me £77 a month for a travelticket which gets me on the metro, ferry, train and buses throughout Tyne & Wear. Roughly it takes me an hour to travel each way to work, when I used to drive to work it was a similar time. However the car was costing £35 a month insurance, at least £25 a week in petrol and roughly £2 a day through the Tyne Tunnel. Thats not even including tax and maintence costs (it was an old banger, a Vauxhall Corsa)

Overall I was spending around £170 a month on travel so initially it looks like a really good saving. However you also have to take into account extras like taxis if your moving something big/heavy, or travelling any sort of distance by train or coach outside of the region. Me and the Mrs are thinking of getting a car again after were marries next year, Ive already said I wont use it work as its not worth the hassle even though I have a 30 mile round trip to work.