I also work in Central London, but drive to an outlying Underground station and then Tube the last bit.
It costs me £7 in fuel, £2 to park at the station, and £5.50 for the Tube (£2 in as it's usually before 7 am and £3.50 back out)
When I looked into a season ticket to do the whole journey by rail, it was £6000 (daily return on a "walk on" basis is £32). That is a joke and not worthy of further consideration. My investigations were abandoned from that moment on.
Cheers
DP
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04 Grand Scenic 1.9 dCi Dynamique
00 Mondeo 1.8TD LX
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It costs me about 11p per mile...
We've been through this before - the problem with car ownership is that most of the cost is fixed, so you're paying for the car whether you use it or not. For average users, pretty well the only variable cost is the fuel cost.
If you had to pay the whole cost of owning / running a car on a per mile basis then it would be more like 50p. Suddenly public transport starts to look cost effective. There's an easy fix for the disparity - road charging!
The other thing is that you're starting from the existing position of travelling to work by car. If you had to rely on public transport then you may well choose where you work based on how easily / cheaply you can there.
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Current project = works anywhere with access = home for now. Lucky me. Alt location might be Slough and hotels.
Other times.... driving to Manchester and parking more expensive than the train....
- Normal daily return = £3.50 and parking treble that or worse. And the walk to station would be ten minutes.
- For an evening trip to Manchester it's only £1.75 return (actually priced from that from midday) but last train back is just after 11pm. So this week the theatre will need he use of the car and more than £6 for parking!
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Well I cant use public transport to get to work as my ctomer live all over the county.
However, if I want to go to the bank say, I cant catch a bus because there isnt one, although there is a bus stop, just to tease.
Therefore, its an hours walk atleast and if I get a last minute job come in, I have turn it down.
Yeah I love public transport, its such an alternative lol.
I did use ap ark&ride once down in Saltash, Devon. Worked very well, parking in a field and busses into town every 15 mins. Great service and cheap too.
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stunorthants26, Hope the customers pay for travel expenses,
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Indeed Bill Payer, the OP's calculations are facile, but not uncommon. It's important to understand just how much of our income is devoted to cars (..and 'devoted' is a deliberate choice of words) & how such spending 'falls under the radar' when trying to get to a reasonable (..and accurate) understanding of such things, i.e. true comparisons of transport costs.
I fully expect a bangernomics expert to post shortly & say that his/her total costs can undercut your assumptions of fixed costs (principally capital depreciation) & that the OP's assumptions & calculations could be accurate, if applied to their circumstances. Perhaps then, they should consider the destruction of value (from somebody's wallet) that occurs before they buy their banger.
Edited by woodbines on 10/12/2007 at 00:11
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Indeed Bill Payer the OP's calculations are facile but not uncommon.
Too right! If only we had cars that cost 11p/mile to run.. LOL!
I sometimes think about the big fleets in this country (e.g. Motability have about 400,000 cars and the banks, insurance co's etc etc, not to mention lease companies have literally millions between them). Think about all that depreciation - its not wooden dollars either, its real money that comes out of the economy. Imagine if just a half of that went into alternative transport infrastructure...
And yes, busses/trains/trams etc are not much good if they don't go directly where you want, but they are very useful if they do. |There's also a lot more of them in the city than in the country - 'cos there's more people who want to move around. Simple, isn't it?
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>the OP's calculations are facile
Deliberately so though. And I did say 11p per mile in fuel.
I considered not even bringing cost into it because I knew the pedants would be circling.
To be honest, even if public transport was free, I would only use it as an absolute last resort.
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I considered not even bringing cost into it because I knew the pedants would be circling.
Hardly 'pedants' when your original post compared a £2.50 'cost' of using the car with the £10 spent on public transport. I'll bet the real cost of using your car is a least £10 - to someone, if not to you.
To be honest even if public transport was free I would only use it as an absolute last resort.
Excellent. That will leave a bit more room for the rest of us because if PT were free then I'd certainly use it where practical. And one less person to hear and/or smell.... LOL!
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Hmm, a few brief calculations later, taking into account all the the annual costs of running my car for a typical year (uncluding a realistic maintenance allowance based on experience) and then fuel on top, and I estimate 15p per mile in total. This is helped by having a very cheap and economical used car that was paid in full three years ago. Even if I had to absorb the cost of the car into the mileage I've done in it so far, it's still only add slightly over a penny to each mile and that's getting cheaper each trip :)
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The advantage of being close enough to a city centre (but no closer) is we left Manchster near the Christmas markets on the free bus at 16:50 and at 17:04 were on the train home (with lots of goodies)... by 17:25 brewing a pot of tea at home.
(Okay cheated as car near local station)... but it cost £1.75 each return.
As for pence per mile driving... it depends. Which is why I dread the fuel card. On business miles you could make a little per mile.
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Interesting site. Reckons for my home-uni trip I should walk for 24 minutes and then get a bus for 18 minutes, then walk for 6 minutes. This is about right - total cost inc bus ticket, £1.90 and 46 minutes.
But for 'Car' it reckons it will take 38 minutes? To do 5 miles? What planet are they on? It takes 15 minutes, tops. By car it takes 10 minutes at night and 15 minutes during the day, and costs me £2 in fuel (at 20mpg).
Tend to use the bus once a week becuase I can't find anywhere to park all day, and I've got lectures all day on that particular day.
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I wouldn't mind using public transport in theory, (doesn't work for me as 3 bus changes and over an hour and a half versus 20 mins, makes it a no-no)....IF the rest of the public could be a bit more civilised....... by that i mean:
-personal hygiene
-not eating right next to me, whatever it is
-not playing music so loud on headphones all you can hear is the irritating clicking sound
-not looking like they'd rip my head off if i dared to say'could you take your feet off the seat'
-not answering a mobile phone and talking very loudly
-smelling of drink
in other words, having some consideration for other people
so i'm with PG on this one
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My public transport journey is either:
30 minute walk across fields to the train station
20 minute train journey to Liverpool city centre
30 minute train journey to Warrington town centre
20 minute walk to office.
or
20 minute walk to bus stop
40 minute bus journey to Liverpool city centre
30 minute train journey to Warrington town centre
20 minute walk to office.
Car is 50 minutes door to door. Costs about £6 in diesel a day, plus insurance, depreciation, rfl etc etc. I reckon about £11 a day in running costs and fuel.
However, as someone has already pointed out, my car costs me if I use it or not. As the public transport option costs about £11 return per day, in reality in will cost me approx £16 as I've got to pay the fixed costs for my car in addition to the public transport cost.
So, in a very rough finger in the air summary, public transport costs me £16, takes 1hr40min and I get my feet muddy. Car costs £11 and is warm.
No case to answer, your honour.
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By car - get up at 5.30am, in car at 6am, in office 20 miles away (comfortably) by 6.30 . Finish at 2pm, home by 2.45pm absolute latest.
By bus - get up at 5.15, leave house 5.45 for 6am bus (first bus of the day). Bus gets into town at 7.10, wait for 10 mins for connecting bus, which takes 40 minutes to near office, then 10 minute walk. At desk around 8am. Which means I can't leave until 4pm - walk to bus stop - 10 mins, 40 mins into town, Just miss my bus connection by 10 mins, so have to wait another 40 mins for next bus. Takes 1 hour 25 mins o/a rush hour, then 15 minute walk. Home at 6:15 pm.
Total travel time - car - 1hr 15 mins max Cost at 40p/mile = £16
Total travel time bus - 5hr 35 mins Cost = £7.
Value of 4 hrs 20 mins of my life - even at minimum wage - far exceeds the value of bus travel.
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Bath to Bristol
1 - drop kids off at school, dump car at top of hill to get free parking, 20 min walk to Bath Spa, catch the just after 9.30 HST, get into Temple Meads for 9.50 and 20min walk to office.
Cost £6.50 for train ticket
2 - drop kids off at school, drive to Bristol via one of the many routes, arrive in Bristol any time between 9.45 to 10am, park in multi storey 200 yards from office. More often than not, in the office for 10am.
Cost £8.00 for parking (£10 next year), say 30-50 miles at 25mpg on super unleaded, say £6-9 petrol
3 - drop kids off at school, whizz up the park and ride lane at Brislington, park, catch bus, 10min to office. takes 50 minutes all in.
Cost - £2.40 for P&R, about £5 petrol.
Default is the car. Option 1 is by far the least stressful, but the park and ride is well entertaining on the return journey - Le Mans running starts have nothing on it.
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I have three alternatives:
Walk to local railway station, 1/2hour, catch train, 45 mins, 10 min walk other end = 1hr 25mins
Drive in, 35 mins + 10min walk = 45mins, parking free.
Drive 8 miles to next station (more trains from there), 15mins, train 25mins and walk 10mins = 50mins
Costs? I have to pay for fuel, but rail costs are minimal 'cause I get a major discount, I tend to go for the third option as it reduces fuel costs, I have more trains to choose from and the parking is free (its not at my local station!), so works out most convenient.
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Disregarding the fact I have to take my daughter to nursery on the way to the office.
Train at 7.17
Leave house at 7.10
Walk to station - 300m or so.
20 minute rail journey
Walk to office 5 minutes
Cost IIRC about £2 return, time about the same as driving.
The downfall is the "Train at 7.17" - that's what the timetable says, reality can vary wildly!
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I think all this thread proves is that public transport is good for some journeys and not for others. But surely we all know this, don't we?
For travel into central B'ham or London I would always use public transport - its much less hassle and probably cheaper than driving - no contest. I'm also a fan of 'Park and Ride' schemes.
From time to time I've used local busses in my locality and not had any problems with drunks or people threatening me etc., but it's a decent enough area anyway, so I wouldn't expect to. The worst that has happened is the odd crying baby, but having three children myself I'm not in a position to grumble.
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I think all this thread proves is that public transport is good for some journeys and not >>for others. But surely we all know this, don't we?
I agree. Don't overlook a combination of car and public transport either though.
For me, a "half and half" approach is the best way into Central London as a balance between cost effectiveness and convenience. Car to the outskirts and then train/tube as appropriate from there.
Train all the way in from home is a pound a mile! Driving in would send me insane within a week, and would be cripplingly expensive. I reckon £40-£45 a day all in depending on where I parked.
Cheers
DP
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04 Grand Scenic 1.9 dCi Dynamique
00 Mondeo 1.8TD LX
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