Just worked out that I "spend"
£3,700 a year on the commute, if I include parking at work - I could, in theory, park on street for nothing but contract parking gives me a guaranteed space for the days when I get held up or go in late.
I've included depreciation in that figure, along with diesel, insurance and a service. I've not discounted any of that for leisure use, as most weekends the car doesn't move - 95%+ of the mileage is on the commute.
Sounds a lot doesn't it?
But consider that I drop Mrs ND off at her work and pick her up again on an evening, without a significant diversion out of the way, so car-sharing means we're both covered for the commute in that cost
An annual bus / rail pass would cost me approx £1240 (with corporate discount applied though a deal my employer has with the local PTE) and I can split that over 12 interest free loan payments from my salary. But with Mrs ND's travel costs to consider as well (remember we car share) that would be an additional £600 for an annual Worst bus ticket - although she doesn't get a loan option from her employer so we've have to stump that up in one go. Which would give a cost of around £1840. However, we would need to hire a car a few times a year for holidays, or to visit family who live too far from a station to make the train a sensible option, so lets round that up to
£2100.
So, in theory we could potentially be £1,600 a year better off.
However, having tired using public transport as a trial it's important to factor the additional time in too.
In the car I can do the 24 mile trip (each way) in around 50 minutes. Depending what time I finish, and where that puts me in the evening rush hour, it can take anything from 90 minutes to 2 hours. On one memorable occasion it took over 4 hours, but lets not mention that again
The absolute fastest I can do the commute (bus, train, 15 minute walk) is just under two hours each way. If the outbound bus on a morning is even 5 minutes late, I miss the train connection and adding 20 minutes while I wait for the next one. This almost certainly happens on a Monday as in addition to driving the bus, the driver has to go through a convoluted process of selling weekly tickets to an awful lot of passengers, which includes sticking them in a little plastic wallet thing.
And there is the convenience factor - if I fancy another 5 minutes snooze on a morning, that makes me 5 minutes later at the office using the car. By public transport it makes means I have to wait 30 minutes for the next bus. Same story on a night - 5 minutes later finishing something off, means a 20 minute wait at the station for the next train. Plus as anyone who commutes in Leeds will tell you, we have some of the least reliable buses in the country, along with a council / PTE who've spent millions on not finding a solution.
Not having to go through all that palaver and having that extra hour plus every day to do other stuff is worth that £1,600 (£30/week) and more.
Sadly, the bike isn't an option for me either - 26 miles (avoiding the motorway) would take me around 2 hours each way on some roads that are frankly horrible for cycling.So although my employer provides good cycling facilities (C2W, secure bike shed, showers, lockers, etc), it just doesn't work for me.
A final thought - last year I had to go down to that there Laarndaan quite a bit with work, averaging a couple of times a month. There are a surprising amount of people who seem to do that commute most days...