Like most people I try to avoid public transport wherever possible. Not only is a car normally, cheaper, but it’s more comfortable and quicker too.
But to be fair to the services available, I had not yet tried the journey from my new home to my old work. My new home is only a two minute walk from the railway station and Legal & General in Hove is a pacy fifteen minutes walk. So the combined journey time, with the fifteen minutes on the train itself, is about half an hour. This compares very favourably with the rush hour journey time by car (because, of course, of the lack of public investment in viable roads from Shoreham past Chichester).
So, in future, if it weren’t for the frankly bizarre prohibitive cost, I would be more than keen on using this alternative. Actually, I’ll have to again tomorrow as my car remains at the garage.
On the cost, I still need to have it explained to me. How can it possibly cost more to transport many passengers than to transport one? And if you can share your car not only is the cost halved instantly, but it also becomes even more competitive. The do-gooder socialist environmentalists wish to correct this imbalance by charging car drivers more for the privilege of moving about their own country by private means (where do-gooder socialist environmentalists could, without too much squinting, be replaced with the single word “facists”).
As a short exercise, here is a comparison of the costs:
1. Private car: 13 pence per mile (if through town) or 10 pence per mile (if using the A27 trunk road which I do). This is a total of £1.20 for the 9.2 mile journey.
2. Train: £3.10 in each direction (ignoring spurious discounts if you choose to use the train every day)
Even if we add the 48 pence per day of road tax (which presumably exceeds expenditure on roads these days) the car remains a cheaper option. And if we removed the imbalance caused by fuel duty the car would be nearly a half cheaper again.
But why? How do economies of scale not come into play here? The train was full and the train in front of it was full too (I had to watch it pass as it does not stop here in Lancing) so the passengers on the train were not subsidising empty seats. The train uses electricity which everyone knows is created relatively efficiently (much more efficiently than burning a small amount of petroleum under the bonnet of several hundred vehicles) and, to cap it all, the train companies are largely subsidised by Her Majesty’s wealth-suppressor (sorry, the tax man).
So, someone, tell me why!
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#1 by Rogue on November 1st, 2007 - 10:41 am
Gav,
Before you say it, no I’m not a ‘green do-gooder’, I also drive to work.
Do you claim on expenses for travelling by car? If so, are you honest and only claim for 10p per mile ?
You haven’t taken into consideration the cost of insurance, repairs (you say the car is in the garage at the moment), depreciation, etc.
The AA show that running a car costs around 30-40p per mile. The AA also show your journey to be a round trip of approx. 15 miles, this would make a cost of £4.50 (based on 30p per mile) The train fare is £3.10 one way, but £3.20 for a return.
#2 by Gav on November 1st, 2007 - 11:09 pm
To be fair, £3.20 is a cheap day return.
My expenses for travelling are set at a rate decided by my employer and that is 13p per mile but that is for the distance from home to my new work in Kingswood, Surrey less the distance from home to Hove. If I drive aggressively I can get the cost of petrol up to 13p per mile!
I didn’t include ‘fixed’ costs because I would pay those anyway — I was not comparing owning a car and using it, with not owning a car and public transport, I was comparing owning a car and using it, with owning a car but using public transport when it is not significantly inconvenient.
However, to bolster your case, Google maps says it is 9.2 miles in each direction which is just over 18 miles round.
I think my point still stands though — economies of scale should make a train significantly cheaper.
#3 by Vincent on April 12th, 2008 - 5:26 pm
Rail’s infrastrucutre costs are mostly paid by its users (66% of total rail costs are paid by ticket sales in the UK).
Road infrastructure, on the opposite is entierely paid by taxes.
This is the reason why using the car appears to be cheaper.
But if one one would add to the cost of travelling by car all the infrastructure costs paid through taxes, I think rail would become cheaper.