How to make the railway cheaper than the car?

[XmisterIS]

My least economical vehicle is a dirty old Mondeo turbo diesel that belches grey smoke under acceleration, the way that dirty old diesels do. It also returns approx 40mpg, which is not great, but not bad either for such a huge car.

Converted to miles per litre, my car does 8.8MPL.

Let's say I want an open return to Southampton Central from where I live, that'll be £6.50 thank you very much sir.

The round trip is 24 miles (12 each way).

Now then with diesel at approx £1.40 per litre, and my car running at 8.8MPL, I calculate that it would cost me £3.80 to do the journey by car. Instead today I'll do it by motorbike, which returns 55mpg = 12.1MPL, therefore approx 2 litres of petrol at approx 1.35 per litre, therefore cost by bike is £2.70.

Doing the same calculation differently, for a vehicle to use £6.50 worth of fuel for the round trip, it would need to use 4.8 litres. Over 24 miles, that's 5 miles per litre, which is 22.75 miles per gallon!!!!

So - taking the train into Southampton costs as much as a single occupant in something like a turbo-charged 6 litre 4x4.

Flippin' ridiculous.

I deliberately haven't included parking costs because it's possible to park for free if you don't mind a 1/2 mile walk to the city centre, which I don't, 1/2 a mile is nothing to anyone who has legs and can use them without collapsing in a wheezing fit of blubbery Burger King obesity.

The answer IS NOT "double the price of fuel" - that would be grossly unfair to those of us who live in rural and semi-rural areas (e.g. me, and a shed load of the rest of the population) and would probably knacker the economy completely (spiraling inflation in double figures, etc). What we need is train tickets at a price that rival petrol prices. The question is how do we get there ...

 

[Jonathing]

I don't know the answer, but I know it's never going to happen.

The train companies seem to be constantly chomping at the bit to further raise fares. The only way to lower them would be a serious cash injection by the government, which is equally not going to happen, what would they get from it, they have their Jaguars which we pay for.
At home it's 6 miles to the nearest train station, no bus service to speak of and we have some of the highest fuel prices in England. My father has a theory that as a static population is easier to govern rule this is all part of government policy.

 

[HLaB]

Perceived costs and actual costs are a fair bit different though; it not just the cost of petrol, its the mot, maintenance, VED, insurance etc. That said train prices are still astronomically out of sync.

 

[Nortones2]

Only the marginal costs of driving are compared with the total rail fare. Train fare covers all the costs: staff, track, capital depreciation, costs of peak usage (where rolling stock is sized to cope more or less with peak demands) and champers for the directors... Whereas car drivers do not pay for the roads, or at least not enough, and already have mentally discounted the depreciation of an asset standing still for most of the time

 

[GrumpyGregry]

do the maths again using monthly, or better still, annual rail season tickets, and as suggested above, factor in the ALL the real costs of car ownership and the cost of the money used to buy the car in the first place..... then at least you'll be comparing fruit with fruit.

 

[XmisterIS]

Only the marginal costs of driving are compared with the total rail fare. Train fare covers all the costs: staff, track, capital depreciation, costs of peak usage (where rolling stock is sized to cope more or less with peak demands) and champers for the directors... Whereas car drivers do not pay for the roads, or at least not enough, and already have mentally discounted the depreciation of an asset standing still for most of the time

do the maths again using monthly, or better still, annual rail season tickets, and as suggested above, factor in the ALL the real costs of car ownership and the cost of the money used to buy the car in the first place..... then at least you'll be comparing fruit with fruit.

I'm not so sure it's all that much - I service my motorbike myself and I pay £60 in VED, or thereabouts and the MOT is £35, I think. The car gets MOTed and serviced once per year because I drive it so little and that costs about £90, tops. I pay £155 VED. Spread over the cost of all the journeys I make by motor vehicle, that's not a huge amount of money (£340 per year). I do about 10K per year in both vehicles, so factoring that £340 in, that's about 3.5p per mile. Over the 24 mile round trip to Southampton that's 80p, let's add that to the worst-case scenario, which is £3.80 by car and the real cost is £4.60. Still 90p cheaper than the train, and by motorbike it's £3.50, which is fully £3 cheaper than the train!

No wonder the roads round me are heavily congested. And trying to come out of Southampton at rush hour in something that has four wheels is an absolute joke! So today, I'll be filtering through the traffic on my motorbike, dodging the aggressive, hot and bothered cagers who hate me while they sit in traffic for two hours.

Somewhere in my mind is a utopia where we have well-run, plentiful, cheap trains and a comprehensive rail network, lovely clean air and uncongested roads because everyone has either used park-and-ride or they all have folding bikes and use the train!

 

[GrasB]

When I'm visiting my in-laws I use public transport a lot more even though it would be cheaper to travel by car. The reason is simple, it's more convenient & importantly less stress. In the UK public transport isn't just (extortionately?) expensive but it's also more of a hassle & more stressful, therefor it's not an option.

 

[Leaway2]

Busses are the same. The busses are all running round empty, for me to go into the local centre, a taxi is not that much dearer, and less if there is more than 1 person. The prices are going up again this week!

I am old enough to remember when South Yokshire and London, subsidised the public transport, the busses/underground had a set fare of 20p (I think, it was in the 70's). Happy days.

 

[XmisterIS]

[QUOTE 1367946"]
Insurance?
[/quote]

Oh yeah, forgot that one! Lol! Ok ... Bike is £95 per year, car is £250 ... that's another £340 ... so double the cost per mile to £1.60.

Car still costs 20p less than train (not a lot in it then), bike is still £2.20 cheaper than the train. Bearing in mind that most people don't own a motorbike, we're probably talking closer to £1 per mile in non-fuel costs for the average motorist, so still cheaper than the train.

Busses are the same. The busses are all running round empty, for me to go into the local centre, a taxi is not that much dearer, and less if there is more than 1 person. The prices are going up again this week!

Yep, and it's possible to get a cheaper return ticket on the train (£5, I think), but you're limited to certain trains which are few and far between, so it's a bit of a non-benefit!

 

[ohnovino]

<puts head cautiously above the parapet> Nationalise the railways? Shouldn't it be a public service rather than a private enterprise?

<runs for cover>

Or go the other way and privatise the road network - then see how much the car journey would cost!

 

[Dan B]

Only the marginal costs of driving are compared with the total rail fare. Train fare covers all the costs: staff, track, capital depreciation, costs of peak usage (where rolling stock is sized to cope more or less with peak demands) and champers for the directors... Whereas car drivers do not pay for the roads, or at least not enough, and already have mentally discounted the depreciation of an asset standing still for most of the time

But for most people outside of a decent-sized metropolis, you may as well mentally discount depreciation and all the other fixed costs because unless you can find a way to ditch the car you're going to be paying them whether you make this extra journey or not.

 

[MrHappyCyclist]

A lot of the extras, like insurance and GVED, are fixed costs, so don't count. I won't be selling the car - it's really not practical to carry my daughter's cello on a bicycle, and impossible for my son's drum kit! I suppose we could get a cargo bike like so many Dutch people, but it just seems a step too far at the moment.

 

[tuffty]

Two weeks ago, my wife and myself needed to go from Ely to Bristol for the weekend. We needed to be in Bristol by 8pm on the Friday. A train fare was going to be £209 ... each! We opted to spend the roughly £60 it cost in diesel in our 55mpg Focus instead, but out of interest I went to Avis car rental for a quote. They would have rented us an Astra for the weekend for £56 - obviously that covers insurance, depreciation and enough for Avis to make a profit ... add on your £60 diesel and you're still comfortably under £209, let alone the £418 it would have cost for the both of us!

 

[JamesAC]

Perceived costs and actual costs are a fair bit different though; it not just the cost of petrol, its the mot, maintenance, VED, insurance etc. That said train prices are still astronomically out of sync.

If you use a web-site like www. transportdirect.info, you can compare train and car costs for a journey.
If you only allow for fuel costs, then car is cheaper. But, if you factor in the (RAC derived) figs for depreciation, maintenance, insurance etc, then very often train (for a single person) IS cheaper.

It's certainly far, far less stressful, especially on long journeys. I don't know what price you put on that!

The problem is, when people compare the costs of journeys, they don't usually factor in these other car costs. That seems unreasonable to me: the car isn't free!

 

[JamesAC]

Two weeks ago, my wife and myself needed to go from Ely to Bristol for the weekend. We needed to be in Bristol by 8pm on the Friday. A train fare was going to be £209 ... each! We opted to spend the roughly £60 it cost in diesel in our 55mpg Focus instead, but out of interest I went to Avis car rental for a quote. They would have rented us an Astra for the weekend for £56 - obviously that covers insurance, depreciation and enough for Avis to make a profit ... add on your £60 diesel and you're still comfortably under £209, let alone the £418 it would have cost for the both of us!

I don't know where you got your quotes from. I've just looked up on www.nationalrail.co.uk, and the cheapest return fare would be about £50.00 each, depending on when you travel. Yes, these are apex fares, so I'm assuming that you knew in advance that you wanted to go to Bristol etc.