How to make the railway cheaper than the car?

[BrumJim]

The problem is that people still view train travel as cheap. Train was the first travel for the masses before cars became widely available.

Now given the popularity of roads and road transport, buses and coaches are the cheapest way to travel, but people still think trains should be.

So what are trains? Well, mainly faster than cars, particularly on Intercity routes. They are more relaxing, with space to stretch out a bit, walk around, get up and find yourself a coffee. In very urban areas they are the only way to avoid traffic queues. See London, Manchester, Birmingham, et al. Train designers are beginning to forget this, as we head towards a more airline style service - cramped and all facing one way. So in all, trains are a premium service over getting stuck in a tin box and getting squashed on an uncomfortable coach. There are a few lines where social mobility is an issue, e.g. in the corners of the UK - rural Scotland, South West and East Anglia. This is a separate question on the value of connecting rural communities to keep them alive and prevent a flow to the cities, linked to housing costs and community shops.

Also we expect to pay the minimum price at the station, but are still happy to search around for the cheapest prices on flights. If we book trains like we book planes, then we get the best price. Some time in the future maybe we will get trains like flights, where they log the tickets and charge more as the train gets fuller.

Nationalisation is not a good idea. State owned trains were bad, and we keep forgetting that. However privatised trains are more expensive and less reliable than state trains, but more popular. We are seduced by flashy new colours and clever advertising, but keeps us entertained. But since they are more popular, they have to be good by definition.

 

[Glow worm]

We had a recent meeting as a team near London. By the time we'd got buses to the train station, the train from Bristol to London, the tube, the train to where we wanted to go, then a taxi from the station to our destination, we ended up spending well over £800 for just 4 people (there are nearer 10 of us).

Alternatively, hiring a car and a bit of petrol would have meant that the same four people could travel door to door, and we would have arrived over an hour earlier.

I really want to support the rail network, but right now it's just not cost effective.

I had a similar experience recently. For 3 of us from work to get to Birmingham for a meeting (return) would have cost £240 by train from Cambridge/ Ely on a notoriously unreliable service that's always packed and often filthy. Instead we hired a car for £56. It meant we got to the meeting in 1.5 hours instead of 3, left at 8-30 instead of 6-45am and got back in plenty of time too. The parking was £7 in Brum and petrol about £30. Hiring a car was so much less hassle than getting the train for this trip but it really shouldn't be that way.

 

[StuartG]

I do London to Aberystwyth regularly. That's an £80 tank of diesel or ...

£6.95 each way by Arriva/Virgin (APEX/Railcard).
Occasionally £1 each way by National Express.

No contest if I can plan. But if I can't - or the Arriva (same company) bus arrives late it becomes silly money.

An integrated public transport aiming to compete with the car would be wonderful. Instead it is a lottery, sometimes you win big, sometimes you lose. Who needs the hassle?

Certainly seems a lot simpler and cheaper in Spain, Italy ...

John Major should be stretched slowly across the tracks.

 

[SavageHoutkop]

.. or taxi?

or bike

 

[mcshroom]

I had a similar experience recently. For 3 of us from work to get to Birmingham for a meeting (return) would have cost £240 by train from Cambridge/ Ely on a notoriously unreliable service that's always packed and often filthy. Instead we hired a car for £56. It meant we got to the meeting in 1.5 hours instead of 3, left at 8-30 instead of 6-45am and got back in plenty of time too. The parking was £7 in Brum and petrol about £30. Hiring a car was so much less hassle than getting the train for this trip but it really shouldn't be that way.

I don't really think that's a problem. I would think that a multiple occupancy car would be as sensible and at least as economical as a train which cannot guarantee it will be full and has someone else driving it. Also the environmental impact will not be much different and may actually be better for the car.

What annoys me is when trains are more expensive than driving there myself (using the HMRC price) as a single car occupant. Surely then I am the sort of person that should be on a train. Trains can be reasonably cheap though as long as you are prepared to do the number crunching and split the tickets up, and long distance they can be far more comfortable than driving

 

[Nigeyy]

I have always tried to use a train whenever possible to get somewhere -I figure it's more environmentally green all things being equal compare to a car -and yes, I'm prepared to pay a small premium if it avoids aggravation. However, whenever I go to the UK and try to look up train fares..... it seems to be worse than the Enigma code to crack to get a straight answer. Maybe I exaggerate, but it seems that the cheapest fare to get from Clagnut to Half Bakedham depends on if its the third Wednesday of a month, after 10:00pm and only in the months starting with J, excluding Summer peak travel in June and July, and only after you pass your 60th birthday and a kidney stone....etc, etc. OK, so there is a little exaggeration there -but to travel any considerable distance (and god forbid) you want to travel to a relatively unknown location hence requiring multiple rail companies, you're in a world of hurt. It would be really nice to have an integrated network with a consistent framework of fares -but let's just say I'm not holding my breath.

FYI: Amtrak in the USA is even worse if you wish to take a bicycle -I really, really wanted to use Amtrak to take my bike on a bike tour instead of using a car, but the restrictions and getting straight or consistent answers truly defy belief as well. I ended up using the car.

The sad thing is I really, really want to be rail customer -but they really seem to do their best to make me not use the train. How sad is that? It does make me wonder how many other people are like me and how many customers they are missing out on. I'm now at the point where I almost just don't bother considering a train a viable option. Well, unless it's the third Wednesday of the month, after 10:00pm......

 

[SavageHoutkop]

I have always tried to use a train whenever possible to get somewhere -I figure it's more environmentally green all things being equal compare to a car -and yes, I'm prepared to pay a small premium if it avoids aggravation. However, whenever I go to the UK and try to look up train fares..... it seems to be worse than the Enigma code to crack to get a straight answer. Maybe I exaggerate,

You don't! Post the routes here if you want advice, I'm sure there're others on the site who might know exactly what/when to buy and from where (this is another bugbear of mine). I'm pretty good on one specific line due to personal experience...

At the moment my cheapest (cheapest, mind, not even most convenient) way of getting from A to B is to buy a ticket from A to x, then to buy a first class ticket from x to y, and then to buy another ticket from y to B. These tickets, I might add, are all on the exact same train, I don't even need to get off.

 

[Norm]

Last Sunday, I took the 9:02 from Maidenhead to Reading, then on to Bedwyn and then spent the rest of the day (mending punctures and) cycling home again. It's a trip of about 60 miles each way, which cost me £12.70 as I bought a return ticket for only 10p more than a single.

It was a fantastic day out for relatively little money.

However, a return to London 24 hours later would have cost me twice as much to do less than half the distance.

Unfortunately, prices seem to be irrelevant to most commuting passengers because the peak-time services are rammed to over-capacity. I only use peak-time services if my employer is paying, but I make frequent use of off-peak for pleasure trips.

 

[XmisterIS]

I haven't taken the train for years, and looking at the posts here, the mind boggles at the complexity of making a simple trip by train!

Where my German friend comes from (Hemsbach in Baden-Wuerttemberg on the edge of the Odenwald), they have a very very simple system - the whole train system is broken up into hexagons, like a beehive. If you want to travel from one place to another, you just count the number of hexagons through which you'll pass and pay per hexagon. If you decide en-route that you would like to go further, you can buy extra hexagons on the train from the ticket collector, or when you get off. Simples! That being said, the train in Germany can be a comparable price to the UK. It's just that their system is a whole hell of a lot simpler than ours. Our system seems to beautifully demonstrate the golden rule of British bureaucracy, which seem to be, "why make something simple when you can make it astonishingly complicated?!"

 

[thelawnet]

Public transport is generally unpleasant and expensive - the coach to Heathrow from here costs £10.50 one-way, £18.50 return. But to get to the station it's £5 for a taxi (you could walk but realistically airport passengers will be carrying a lot of luggage.)

OTOH, a minicab costs £20, so for 2 or more passengers you're much better off having your own private taxi than waiting around for the coach in the cold/rain.

 

[asterix]

My train journey from L'pool to York, return, is £43. Not too bad, methinks. No car parking to pay, either.

 

[Red Light]

Don't know where you got your prices from but with a little planning and knowledge you can get train tickets much cheaper than that ( down to ~£14 one way Ely to Bristol). Yes, you have to plan in advance and be prepared to not travel at certain times but then who plans to drive round the M25 at peak times? I usually take the train with Brommie and usually find it cheaper than the car. And that's before I've factored in the cost of my time I'm wasting holding a steering wheel. There are all sorts of discount and group schemes available too which take a little research to get on top of but can save a lot of money.

But if you must travel at peak times then it will cost you just as you will have to deal with heavy congestion and delay if you drive.

Your costs for the car are way out by the way. You've forgotten all the wear and tear on the car e.g. tyres, exhausts, things breaking and needing to be replaced etc which happens more frequently the more you drive. And the cost of the replacement which will be needed sooner the more you clock up the miles. Most people forget those mileage related costs that they are storing up with each journey and just think of the petrol costs but you will pay them eventually.

 

[jefmcg]

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

Isn't this the entire answer? When you go for a drive, you do not pay for the roads. However, when you board a train, part of your fare goes towards infrastructure. I imagine the costs would equalise if every road in the UK became a toll road.

As road infrastructure is funded out of general revenue (with the exclusion of a few toll roads), shouldn't network rail also be entirely funded by the government?

 

[david1701]

.. or taxi?

50 miles to my nearest station (bude to exeter) god knows what that will cost on a cab

 

[davefb]

Isn't this the entire answer? When you go for a drive, you do not pay for the roads. However, when you board a train, part of your fare goes towards infrastructure. I imagine the costs would equalise if every road in the UK became a toll road.

As road infrastructure is funded out of general revenue (with the exclusion of a few toll roads), shouldn't network rail also be entirely funded by the government?

moan moan, course i'm paying for the road !!! where do you pesky cyclists thing the road tax and the petrol tax goes


my new commute is the choice of 52miles (roundtrip) on busy motorways, or 12.50 daily fair ( 55quid week, 200 monthly) for train PLUS either a 30min walk to station or 2quid eachway OR 20? quid week bus ticket..[or drive / park/walk to station, which i've also done though involves a risk of 'smashed side window']

i'm driving, on the one day i didnt, there was delays and the train didnt turn up and i was late(r).. i know thats just bad luck , but from when i used to get the train a lot, 'bad luck' used to happen about once a week and normally means 'stuck in even more packed train than normal'..

it'd have to be cheaper than the petrol, i've got the car so already pay most of the costs and the headline figure is the petrol... which at the moment, i'm paying about 35quid a week... (due to having slowed down and driving carefully )... mind you, if anyone knows a free place to park in wilmslow i'd love to know it !!!

I dunno how to 'fix' this, I just know a few things and one is the amazing fact about how many more people use the train... privatisation might not be what we want, but it did deliver one thing, far far far more people on the railways..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GBR_rail_passenegers_by_year.gif
not saying its perfect or right or whatever, just saying ...