The bus might just win out afterall...

[Dai Corner]

I live in the Western suburbs of Newport with good public transport (four buses an hour to Cardiff, ten an hour to the city centre) and thousands of jobs within twenty minutes walk but nearly everyone seems to drives to work.

I deliberately bought a house ten minutes walk from my then workplace and loved the extra hour in bed and stress-free 'commuting'. I'm retired now and looking at it rationally I should not own a car but I love driving and it's so much quicker for anywhere not on a direct bus route.

 

[Robertj21a]

Now that's poor design, hiding settings away like that!

Mine was already on last known location. However, it seems to be the case that, where an inbound bus is linked to an outbound one and there is a delay, the system assumes it will leave the terminus after precisely that delay (and not, for example, allow the driver his break, to use the loo or whatever). It then appears to move as far as the first stop, upon "reaching" which it then shows as back at the terminus, and repeat ad infinitum until it actually departs.

Really annoying little bug for those who live near a terminus.

Having said that, even with that it really is a "killer app" and saves about 5-10 minutes off each journey on an infrequent route by allowing one to leave home at a more precise time and not have to reach the stop early just in case the bus is early.

Like most apps, the frequent users can eventually identify minor bugs that could be corrected but, as you say, the Arriva one is pretty efficient nearly all the time. I'm surprised they don't publicise it even more widely.

 

[fowler9]

Someone mentioned their car cost 75p a mile. I am very lucky in that pretty much any journeys I need to make will generally cost me about £2 to £2.50 ish a day. I have a Trio ticket which is valid on any bus company and the trains also. Even if I have to get another ticket to see a mate who lives in Moels it still works out at much less than 75p a mile. I have a station at the end of my road and three major bus routes nearby one of which is 24 hour. Not showing off like, and I'm not that young, ha ha, but I can certainly understand why so many young people aren't learning to drive. Unlike me many of them in Liverpool will not even need the bus or train to get to work as the live a few minutes walk away. Few to none of them will ever be able to afford kids or a mortgage, why bother with a car.

 

[DelW]

Based on depreciation, fuel, maintenance , road tax and insurance costs over 12,000 miles per year I would think it costs me 75p a mile to drive

Naturally it depends on the type of car and type of journeys made, but for comparison, my figures are rather lower than that for around 16,000 miles per year.

Having had company cars for many years, when I had to buy my own car again in 2012 I decided to keep detailed records of what everything cost. Keeping these on Excel means I can calculate running averages easily.

So my figures for a diesel Focus bought new in May 2012 and now with 99,400 miles on it, are:

• fuel only: 9.2p per mile (currently 62.4mpg over its lifetime)
• fuel + mileage-related costs (servicing, tyres, etc.): 12.1p/mile
• fuel + all running costs (above + insurance, tax etc.): 15:8p/mile
• all costs including depreciation based on estimated current value: 33.1p/mile

I've been fortunate that it has been very reliable (other than tyres and an occasional light bulb, the only 'extra' costs have been £222 for a new exhaust sensor when my local squirrels chewed through a cable under the floor, and a £165 bumper repair when I misjudged the width of a parking space).

Depreciation is the big extra at an estimated £17,200 equal to 17.3p/mile, but of course buying second hand could reduce that quite a lot. It's difficult to say how much of the depreciation is mileage-related and how much is age-related, but I assume any additional journeys I make now are at a marginal cost of about 12 - 13p per mile since the depreciation has largely bottomed-out.

 

[gazthomas]

Naturally it depends on the type of car and type of journeys made, but for comparison, my figures are rather lower than that for around 16,000 miles per year.

Having had company cars for many years, when I had to buy my own car again in 2012 I decided to keep detailed records of what everything cost. Keeping these on Excel means I can calculate running averages easily.

So my figures for a diesel Focus bought new in May 2012 and now with 99,400 miles on it, are:

• fuel only: 9.2p per mile (currently 62.4mpg over its lifetime)
• fuel + mileage-related costs (servicing, tyres, etc.): 12.1p/mile
• fuel + all running costs (above + insurance, tax etc.): 15:8p/mile
• all costs including depreciation based on estimated current value: 33.1p/mile

I've been fortunate that it has been very reliable (other than tyres and an occasional light bulb, the only 'extra' costs have been £222 for a new exhaust sensor when my local squirrels chewed through a cable under the floor, and a £165 bumper repair when I misjudged the width of a parking space).

Depreciation is the big extra at an estimated £17,200 equal to 17.3p/mile, but of course buying second hand could reduce that quite a lot. It's difficult to say how much of the depreciation is mileage-related and how much is age-related, but I assume any additional journeys I make now are at a marginal cost of about 12 - 13p per mile since the depreciation has largely bottomed-out.

Good work! Depreciation is definitely the biggest cost for me - at 50p per mile retaining a new car 3 years. I am literally flushing money down the loo!

 

[Bletchleyite]

Good work! Depreciation is definitely the biggest cost for me - at 50p per mile retaining a new car 3 years. I am literally flushing money down the loo!

Though that's a lifestyle choice, and unless you are doing *huge* mileages has little bearing on how far you drive. So it's more a subscription fee for having a car available (comparable to, say, the subscription fee for a car club) rather than something that is either easy or sensible to calculate as a per mile thing.

 

[fowler9]

33.1 pence per mile is pretty good but still works out at a lot more than I get out of my Trio ticket per day.

 

[chessie]

I think a simple point has been missed through this thread. Most people don't move out of their parents house till a lot later in life now and can depend on the car of mum. dad, friend etc for a lot longer than in my day. Theres no longer the need to pass your test at 17 or the need for relying on public transport because you havent

 

[Dentonian]

I think a simple point has been missed through this thread. Most people don't move out of their parents house till a lot later in life now and can depend on the car of mum. dad, friend etc for a lot longer than in my day. Theres no longer the need to pass your test at 17 or the need for relying on public transport because you havent

Even this scenario is only possible due to multi-car households, though. "In my day", very few households had more than one car - indeed the ward where I lived only has 56% car ownership as late as 1991 - no wonder its main bus service was a licence to print money. As regards "friends", learning to drive at 20 meant I was the oldest of my peers to do so, and for a number of reasons - bad timing was an understatement! - I didn't pursue it. This actually meant that "friends" could not be depended on for lifts, as they knew I couldn't return the favour. Equally, though, such reliance didn't apply as buses were more plentiful and our social circles were much closer to home, with journeys above two miles from our various homes a rarity. Plenty of buses to converge on the town centre from all directions and countless pubs serving decent beers to decent clientele.

 

[Shaw S Hunter]

I think a simple point has been missed through this thread. Most people don't move out of their parents house till a lot later in life now and can depend on the car of mum. dad, friend etc for a lot longer than in my day. Theres no longer the need to pass your test at 17 or the need for relying on public transport because you havent

I think the issue of housing costs preventing young people leaving the family home is independent of the rising costs of motoring for young people. When I was in my teens (that was along time ago!) I had friends whose older siblings almost invariably got cars as soon as they were legally able to do so, even those from less affluent families. Many of them had no intention of moving out in a hurry so parking the extra car at home became an issue for some of them. No it really is the cost of insurance that is the main reason for young people delaying learning to drive.

 

[gazthomas]

Though that's a lifestyle choice, and unless you are doing *huge* mileages has little bearing on how far you drive. So it's more a subscription fee for having a car available (comparable to, say, the subscription fee for a car club) rather than something that is either easy or sensible to calculate as a per mile thing.

You make a very good point - definitely a lifestyle choice

 

[chessie]

I might have lived close to you detonian, we were also one of the lowest car ownerships ex mining area but its not the same now. I work with many twentysomethings and fortunately live in an area where mortgages are still within reach, its not that they cant afford a car, home etc but priorities have changed and they'd rather hop in a taxi anyway..I am pro bus by the way

 

[nerd]

33.1 pence per mile is pretty good but still works out at a lot more than I get out of my Trio ticket per day.

Though if you are using a car to get to work in a city centre; you would also need to factor in daily parking costs. Suppose your commute is 4 miles each way, that could easily add an extra 50p per mile. Add that onto some 10p per mile for fuel; and the car option can look much less attractive. Plus the other cost for commuter car use is time; specifically time not connected - which for the millenial generation is by definition, time wasted.

In practice the car-versus-public transport calculus tends to present regularly at intervals of a few years; when you car faces an MOT for instance; or when it becomes necessary for one partner to have the car to take kids to school. One of the lessons from the Cambridgeshire busway is that families that switch to regular busway use rarely switch back to using cars; even for non-work trips into the city centre.

 

[Tetchytyke]

One of the lessons from the Cambridgeshire busway is that families that switch to regular busway use rarely switch back to using cars

Just as a car is a sunk cost, so is a bus season ticket. If you've already paid for the bus, you're not going to take the car. The crossover comes if you're taking the wife and two kids; when its more expensive to buy their bus tickets, you'll drive.

Generally public transport and the car are roughly the same cost for a single person, with public transport often slightly cheaper and without the hassle of parking. This would explain why younger people will not rush to buy a car.

But public transport's eternal problem is that it is nearly always cheaper to drive as a family or a group. Take four people on a bus and it'll be four times as expensive as driving.

 

[Bletchleyite]

But it’s not utterly terrible if they do - a small family car with 4 occupants makes fairly good use of road space, and if it’s a hybrid it’s probably no worse for the environment either.

 

[Dentonian]

But it’s not utterly terrible if they do - a small family car with 4 occupants makes fairly good use of road space, and if it’s a hybrid it’s probably no worse for the environment either.

Each one is still a "double whammy" for the bus user though. A small car with 4 on board is equivalent to a double-decker with say, 9 on board in terms of road space. At any one time, 9 is a poor load for a commercial bus service, with five times that amount the cross-the-board peak average, and up to 10 times for some journeys on some routes (and not necessarily peak only, either). OTOH, its still four fares (x however many journeys the family makes x however many thousands of families switch) lost to the commercial bus service. The combination of reduced revenue and increased cost/running time will eventually impact on those without the option of private transport. Yes, one family won't make much difference, but thousands on each route/network...................

 

[Dentonian]

Generally public transport and the car are roughly the same cost for a single person, with public transport often slightly cheaper and without the hassle of parking. This would explain why younger people will not rush to buy a car.

Generally being the operative word! In fact, even for a single person, public transport is only cheaper than (a fuel efficient) car if they commute over say 6 miles each way and/or have parking costs. The latter in particular is usually confined to city/regional centres in practice. Most towns (in GM, at least) have plentiful free (or cheap) parking if you look.
I stand by my assertion that you can only count fuel and mileage related costs as true running costs. "Fixed" costs might be slightly mileage related but surely greater factors are Age/accident history of driver (Insurance) and Age of car (depreciation), thus 33.1p isn't really representative. That said, 12.1p sounds a little on the low side and it might be that Del W is not only a competent driver (conserving fuel) but may also be lucky with the individual car and possibly most of his mileage is atypical in relation to sub/urban driving. My brother also has a Focus, a 9 year old diesel and I think he gets just over 40 to the gallon overall. His journey to work is about 5-6 miles in total crossing south Manchester from the east. Typical journey time is 45 minutes in the morning and 35 in the evening, but when the schools are off the morning journey can be as little as 20 mins. It doesn't make much difference in the evening because the schools and works peaks are a good 90-120 minutes apart. Diesel locally is just pushing £1.20 a litre, so that equates to about 14p a mile. Parking is free (with a permit) but taking in "semi variables", let's compromise at 20p a mile. 11 mile round trip is £2.20 a day, £11 a working week. Bus fare is £15 and involves going into Manchester and out again. His hours are fixed and with transfer distance across Piccadilly, you are looking at an hour each way if things run smoothly. He might occasionally use the bus for a night out, but otherwise (shopping etc) its impractical. NB. Bus fares increase far faster than petrol/diesel. This time last year, the £15 ticket was £14 (so an increase of just over 7%), whilst single and day tickets have actually increased nearer 12% in a year.
As it happens £15 / 20p a mile equals 75 miles a week, which is just over the distance from where I used to live to Manchester. So, from there, the cost would be similar. However, whilst the car journey might be only slightly longer timewise than the scenario painted above, the bus service has gone from 9 buses per hour taking 28-36 minutes before De-reg, through 6 an hour, then 4 an hour and now 3-4 bph on a haphazard timetable taking 49-68 minutes today. Those journeys will invariably be on 58/09 regn Enviro 400s that haven't been reupholstered since new, so hardly enticing.

As discussed earlier, whilst commuters will pay broadly the same by bus as driving - though in GM (except Swinton or Wilmslow Road), it is more likely to be higher - those making essential low mileage journeys for part time jobs, shopping or accessing medical facilities will generally pay far more by bus. And all the signs are the gap will just keep on widening.

 

[DelW]

Yes, my 33.1p is just a snapshot in time, in fact it'll go up next week as I've just booked the car in for two new tyres and a service.
The majority of my driving is commuting on a 55 mile round trip per day. The morning is mainly uncongested cross country A roads as I go in early, with 15 - 20 minutes of queues on the way home.
I do occasionally commute by train (two buses each way is feasible but way too slow) but a mile walk from home to the station, and the need to use two trains with poorly timed connections in each direction, are more of a disadvantage than price.