What incentive is there to go by train?

[Mintona]

I’d like to commute by train but would require public transport to run all night to be able to do it due to shifts.

 

[birchesgreen]

I don't like driving long distances anyway but the main reasons i'll (nearly) always choose train over car to go somewhere new/outside the city is being unsure of where to park, plus the fact i have no sense of direction and could get lost in a phone box.

 

[timothyw9]

The railways seem to be running pretty reliability at the moment (in the north west at least)and most delays seem to be caused by infrastructure problems which will never fully go away.

 

[Islineclear3_1]

Driving down to Brighton or Margate is quicker (train takes twice the time!) and fuel costs are roughly similar (maybe slightly less) but sitting in the car park at Clacket Lane chugging tea as you try not to fall asleep from your walk and drive both ways makes you realise how helpful it is to just be able to get on the train and have a nap or just look out the window and listen to music etc.

Funny you say that; however, Brighton is awful for parking (in my experience) and Margate is just that bit too far. Trains are frequent to both resorts and for me, it's a no-brainer

And don't get me started on Clacket Lane !

 

[cactustwirly]

That assumes that you need a car for other purposes. As the average car costs over £3,000/year all in.

Whilst it's possible to get this lower there's going to be few that can get it below £1,000.

Anyway for 8 miles each way you'd be better buying an e-bike and it taking you about 40 minutes if you let it do all the work. Alternatively using one train and cycling the difference, which would likely reduce the journey time to sub 30 minutes. Whilst it's still longer you'd be able to have a nice chunk of exercise on the way home without needing to go elsewhere.

With short distances and a change of train and/or the need for a bus public transport is always going to work out badly time wise.

Of course changing to working from home, even one day a week, is likely to change the maths. As the car wouldn't cost much less per year (mostly just fuel costs), but with rail you only pay for what you use.

Although season tickets work out less good value the fewer days you travel if you work Tue-Fri one week and Mon-Thurs the next you could still benefit from a weekly ticket.

For those who still need a car there's still many households where they could, for a lot less money, cope with just one car and use rail occasional with much more walking and cycling.

Where did you get £3000 from I bought the car and given it a service + tyres for much less than that!

A bike isn't suitable at all especially for treacherous winter conditions, plus I can't ride it on a dual carriageway so the journey would be longer than that.

 

[SuperNova]

Jeez, just when the railways (dft and tocs) seemed to have moved away from all this essential travel business and basically yelling at people not to use trains, they're going to try and price people off even more.

With people piling onto beaches, into bars and packing onto planes (including middle seats) I wonder what the railway industry's (especially maybe the likes of lner, Avanti, xc etc ) medium and long term plan is because right now they're running a pretty successful marketing campaign to discourage a lot of people from using trains for an awfully long time.

Train operators are not happy with the Government/DfT advice. But have to follow it due to the EMA's.

 

[The Ham]

Where did you get £3000 from I bought the car and given it a service + tyres for much less than that!

A bike isn't suitable at all especially for treacherous winter conditions, plus I can't ride it on a dual carriageway so the journey would be longer than that.

I said the average, clearly there's going to be some who do manage it for a lot less than that to make that the average, however there's those for whom it's a lot more than that.

Also that's all costs, so insurance, VED, parking, fuel, etc.

Whist not everywhere is suitable to be cycled, that's more the fault of the infrastructure not being suitable. There's should be no reason why a duel carriageway couldn't have an off road cycle lane to allow cyclists to use it.

 

[cactustwirly]

I said the average, clearly there's going to be some who do manage it for a lot less than that to make that the average, however there's those for whom it's a lot more than that.

Also that's all costs, so insurance, VED, parking, fuel, etc.

Whist not everywhere is suitable to be cycled, that's more the fault of the infrastructure not being suitable. There's should be no reason why a duel carriageway couldn't have an off road cycle lane to allow cyclists to use it.

Where have you got £3000 from? Seems like an overinflated figure plucked from the air.

A season ticket for my commute would still be £2000 anyway.

 

[miami]

Cheaper when you factor in the running costs of a car

I hired a car, had it delivered to home, drove from Cheshire to Somerset and back, had it collected from home, and paid the car hire rate for refilling it, for less than the cost of a train - even ignoring the taxi out to Pilton at the far end.

Was an hour faster each way too.

The argument about not including deprecation, MOT, etc, ignores that much of the cost of a car is incurred whether you drive it or not. That means you either have to not own a car at all, or you can't include the entire cost when comparing with the train.

Where have you got £3000 from? Seems like an overinflated figure plucked from the air.

If you include 10,000 miles a year in that cost seems reasonable. 45mpg at £1.20 a litre is about 12p/mile in petrol, so £1200. Add in £300 insurance, £1k/year in deprecation, £300 in services/mot and that's £2800 a year. Total 30p/mile.

WCML is about 3 times that price.

 

[The Ham]

If you include 10,000 miles a year in that cost seems reasonable. 45mpg at £1.20 a litre is about 12p/mile in petrol, so £1200. Add in £300 insurance, £1k/year in deprecation, £300 in services/mot and that's £2800 a year. Total 30p/mile.

Indeed, however £1,000/year is still a fairly cheap car in terms of depreciation & certainly cheap compared to lease charges where £1,500+/year averaged over the term is still fairly cheap (£125/month including initial deposit).

Also if you pay £2/week for parking that adds a further £100.

Even adding an extra £500 to the depression or any other costs adds a further 5p/mile.

Likewise lowering the milage further increases the costs, taking the quoted figures and halving the miles to 5,000 miles the cost jumps to ~44ppm.

 

[miami]

Again you're comparing traveling by train if you don't own a car vs travelling by car

Compare traveling by train if you do own a car vs travelling by car

 

[The Ham]

Again you're comparing traveling by train if you don't own a car vs travelling by car

Compare traveling by train if you do own a car vs travelling by car

The point I'm making is that often the cost of car ownership (especially for the circa 1/3 of people who drive less than 5,000 & quite probably for the circa 1/3 who drive between 5,000 and 10,000 miles a year) isn't always good value for money and is often underestimated. Especially given that there's been the suggestion that £3,000/year was over inflated without any evidence of what the more reasonable figure should be.

Given that 85% of the population live in urban areas (somewhere where the population is over 10,000 people) there's likely to be a lot of people who could not own a car, or at the very least households could reduce the number of cars, and it not actually impact them all that much.

If you've got a choice of spending £2,000/year on a second car or £1,000/year on trains and walking/cycling a good chunk of the rest whilst sharing a car between two adults (which is more likely going forwards if there's an increase in working from home), then add long as you understand that then more are likely to opt for having just one car. If however you believe that your second car is only costing you £1,200/year then you'll stick with opening two cars, even though you're actually spending more than that.

 

[Bevan Price]

Most of my rail travel is shortish distance, or involves use of rover / day ranger tickets. Long distance rail travel is mostly too expensive - but also much too far for me to want to drive -- so, mostly I don't bother to make any really long journeys by any mode of travel.

I do not want to book in advance to get very low fares, because it is too stressful. I am too far from a station to walk, and I do not trust trains or buses to get me to the starting point - unless I allow an hour or more for "failed connections". And nor do I want to drive to somewhere like Runcorn for a pre-specified train time, because one can never be certain that there will be no congestion or roadworks on the way, so time is again wasted by leaving home an hour or more earlier than necessary. The roads around the Widnes Runcorn bridge can be total h*ll at times.

And on the return, I am never totally certain about which train I will want to use.

 

[johnnychips]

As @TheHam said in post #60, the economics of using the train will change a lot if people work from home 1-3 days a week rather than commuting to work five days a week.

When I was just working two days a week it was cheaper to use my fully-depreciated car at about £10 a return journey. Took about 35 mins from door to desk on relatively good motorways. Now I am working four days a week, the weekly bus and train ticket costs about £30. Takes 50 minutes door to desk, and I always got a seat even before this. And I can use the ticket at weekend in South Yorkshire.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Observations from family members who continue to travel in peak periods ,show continuing light loadings (at best 50% on Thameslink Midland on a few trains) , and empty off peak - largely.

Whilst people I talk to "miss" office contacts etc - there is no massive desire to go back to the old 5 day a week - but some sort of compromise 1/2 days a week. Maybe some of it "off peak"

One observation is (locally) zero use of station car parks - a maximum of 15 cars noted at Hemel Hempstead yesterday. A catastrophic non regulated revenue flow for some operators.

 

[xotGD]

Most people don't own a car because it is the most cost effective thing to do. They own a car in order to have the convenience of having their own car. And in many cases they are happy to spend more to have a 'nice' car.

 

[telstarbox]

This is a very good point. Our car does 90% of its miles at weekends (and we don't use it for commuting), but it's very convenient for those trips which are typically to locations not near a station.

If I have to do a site visit which means leaving home at 0600, it's also very convenient to drive straight to site rather than getting two or three trains with a longer overall journey time.

 

[ChrisC]

I do not want to book in advance to get very low fares, because it is too stressful. I am too far from a station to walk, and I do not trust trains or buses to get me to the starting point - unless I allow an hour or more for "failed connections". And nor do I want to drive to somewhere like Runcorn for a pre-specified train time, because one can never be certain that there will be no congestion or roadworks on the way, so time is again wasted by leaving home an hour or more earlier than necessary. The roads around the Widnes Runcorn bridge can be total h*ll at times.

I have a similar problem with low Advance fares. The bus from my village to the nearest railway station is only hourly. The bus arrives at the station at xx51 each hour. The train service for the unreserved first leg of any journey departs at xx58. From the bus stop there is a main road to cross and then lots of steep steps down on to the platform. The bus would not have to be many minutes late for the train to be missed. It’s too stressful waiting in the village for the bus knowing that even if the bus is only 5 minutes late it would mean paying for another full price train ticket. Therefore I have to add one hour to the beginning of my journey.

 

[Surreytraveller]

If its better than the alternative, then people will use rail. If the alternative is better, people will use the alternative

 

[PeterC]

I have a similar problem with low Advance fares. The bus from my village to the nearest railway station is only hourly. The bus arrives at the station at xx51 each hour. The train service for the unreserved first leg of any journey departs at xx58. From the bus stop there is a main road to cross and then lots of steep steps down on to the platform. The bus would not have to be many minutes late for the train to be missed. It’s too stressful waiting in the village for the bus knowing that even if the bus is only 5 minutes late it would mean paying for another full price train ticket. Therefore I have to add one hour to the beginning of my journey.

Similar issues here, get the train into London before the last possible service (extra 30 minutes). Then allow a little extra in case the cab doesn't turn up at the booked time. With cabs at each end and the fare into London are added on an Advance fare needs to be VERY low to be competitive.

 

[hassaanhc]

It's rare in the UK. Despite the outlook of enthusiasts, most people here use trains either never or infrequently.

People for whom it does work out almost always fall into one of two categories:

- Commuters within London and the South East, whose road journeys would have been appalling

- Long distance passengers travelling on a direct intercity train between major railheads, with a car journey and station car park at one end and often a taxi at the other. Principally this is wealthy people

Commuting into other cities makes up a remarkably small proportion because they have such a low market share, rural journeys or journeys between towns on trains barely register. So to sum up the question: not actually much.

This is so true. It comes down to "The right tool for the job" and opening up options for people. Every single one of these comparisons is obsessed with the city centre journeys, where driving is usually not the right tool, but completely ignores the many more where driving is equally is good, let alone those where public transport just cannot compete. Which then turns into bashing the imaginary elite that dares to own a car, when reality shows this isn't the case for the vast majority of car owners. Running a car can be no more expensive (or even cheaper) than only using public transport. Its great that many people are able to live their entire lives where public transport works, but there is a huge part of the UK where this isn't cost/time effective, or even possible at all.

Moving forward I'd like to use trains 2x a week for commuting (I'm 10min away from Manchester) or every other week. Couldn't put up with it every day now. Using trains every day for work blunts/borderline removes the appeal of using them for leisure, as I'm sure you'll no doubt have experienced. Were you commuting from Helsby every day or did you live closer to MAN at the time? Helsby is a fair way - like western Surrey/eastern Hampshire or St Albans/Hitchin to London I think!

That's exactly what happened to me when I was commuting by public transport daily for 6 weeks. During that time I did almost no leisure bus/train journeys because the working week left me so fed up of public transport. The commute was a bus-train-bus move, and it was the long bus sections that were causing problems when trying to connect to a 2tph rail service to/from Acton Main Line. The train itself was very nice, nowhere near the level of busy that the other peak services on the line (those from the West Drayton direction) usually are. But in the morning it required a bus journey to Southall Station that took anywhere between 10 and 25 minutes (the latter timings making it faster to walk!), and on the way back the bus to Acton Main Line Station took anywhere between 30-60 minutes. I did sometimes go via Zone 1 but the trains were extremely busy there so I hated that option. Total journey time about 60-70 minutes when things worked, but often extended to 80 minutes, and several times in the evenings it crossed 90 minutes.

All due to silly bits like:
Bus stop near my house closed for two whole weeks and no temporary stop post given, so I had to leave earlier than usual.
Next phase of redevelopment work opposite Southall Station swallowed up the bus stop and make the interchange longer, so I had to leave earlier than usual.
Road closures and traffic lights related to utility works in both Southall and Park Royal, which caused more traffic along the bus routes.

Most people don't own a car because it is the most cost effective thing to do. They own a car in order to have the convenience of having their own car. And in many cases they are happy to spend more to have a 'nice' car.

This is why I got a car in February. Yes that £2,500 would have allowed a lot of holidays and many people my age (25) would definitely have done that, but I went for a different option that worked better for me. Certainly would have been nice to make up for the lack of holidays during my teenage years (as my dad knew that saving up for driving lessons was more important) and university years (not enough money), but Covid has made holidays less of an option anyway!

The commute was wholly within London and super cheap because it involved Zones 3-4 only. However, it was really doing my head in with the traffic in the same town centre locations (Southall and Harlesden) plus various little things mentioned above. Driving from Southall area to Neasden area took about 45-55 minutes usually, which wasn't that much faster compared to public transport and involved using Hanger Lane gyratory, but avoided the problematic sections mentioned above and I had free parking at the end. There were a few different routes I could take if traffic was worse, and only once it took more than an hour (which even then was due to my own mistake about choice of route that morning, by ignoring local knowledge about a side road in favour of what Waze suggested). Definitely not cheap, but I decided to go for it as I had the money available while outgoings were low and I was in a job where driving was actually a viable option. That job has sadly gone now, and if my next job is in a location where public transport is obviously the best option, I will return to using it. But at the time it wasn't that clear cut.

 

[The Ham]

Which then turns into bashing the imaginary elite that dares to own a car, when reality shows this isn't the case for the vast majority of car owners. Ru

I'm well aware that 80% of miles traveled are by car, so car ownership is very much far from an elite thing.

The problem is that the general perception is that cars cost what the fuel costs to get about, when that is not the case (this is highlighted when people suggest that it's got to be highly inflated for the average car to cost £3,000/year).

As a country if we wish to get to net zero emissions then there's going to be a need to significantly reduce our travel and for the remaining travel take much lower carbon travel options.

To give you an idea of how far we have to go, to get to half the average distance per person* cycled in 1950 then current cycle rates would need to increase by a factor of 2.4.

Given that 40% of trips are sub 2 miles and a further 20% are sub 5 miles, there's a lot more that the majority could be doing to better this figure, well before we need to start worrying about those who may not be able to use a cycle.

I live in a village of ~3,500 homes if every household reduced by an average of 2 miles a week total car travel it would reduce the distance traveled by a comparable distance as to the moon over the course of a year.

However it would also mean that there would be less cars on the roads around the local area, mashing it a more pleasant place to live and making it nicer to walk/cycle helping to reduce traffic further.

Yes there's going to be those, for whatever reason, need to drive. The perception is that because that person needs to drive then everyone can drive as much as they like.

In reality, if as few people as possible drove then it would be much nicer to drive.

I'm very much of the view that is you like driving and want to be able to get Scott by car then you should be the very person to try and get everyone else to stop driving.

As if we reduce traffic by 10% then it would be the same as it being school holiday levels of traffic all year round.

 

[xotGD]

The problem is that the general perception is that cars cost what the fuel costs to get about

When you already own a car, it pretty much is. Other variable costs are minimal.

Persuading people to leave their car at home is the challenge. The non-drivers are a captive market.

 

[Jamesrob637]

Most people don't own a car because it is the most cost effective thing to do. They own a car in order to have the convenience of having their own car. And in many cases they are happy to spend more to have a 'nice' car.

My car will be amazing once the AC is regassed next week just in time for warmer weather! Only a dodgy rear passenger door lock spoils what would otherwise be the perfect 4 grand package.

 

[Hadders]

Observations from family members who continue to travel in peak periods ,show continuing light loadings (at best 50% on Thameslink Midland on a few trains) , and empty off peak - largely.

Whilst people I talk to "miss" office contacts etc - there is no massive desire to go back to the old 5 day a week - but some sort of compromise 1/2 days a week. Maybe some of it "off peak"

One observation is (locally) zero use of station car parks - a maximum of 15 cars noted at Hemel Hempstead yesterday. A catastrophic non regulated revenue flow for some operators.

I agree with this. My employer who has a large London presence has recently opened up a handful of desks in the office for people who are finding working from home 'difficult'. Authorisation needs to be obtained from Divisional Director level to book a desk and get access to the building. We have been told that there won't be a mass return to the office before 2021.

My view is that the traditional five day a week commute for office workers is finished. It'll be 2 or 3 days a week on the office on average with the rest working from home.

Car park revenue is a good point - I can see car parks being downsized and vacant areas being sold for flats.

 

[yorkie]

Observations from family members who continue to travel in peak periods ,show continuing light loadings (at best 50% on Thameslink Midland on a few trains) , and empty off peak - largely.

Whilst people I talk to "miss" office contacts etc - there is no massive desire to go back to the old 5 day a week - but some sort of compromise 1/2 days a week. Maybe some of it "off peak"

One observation is (locally) zero use of station car parks - a maximum of 15 cars noted at Hemel Hempstead yesterday. A catastrophic non regulated revenue flow for some operators.

I don't think I know anyone who wants to work 100% from home, who does not aleady do so, but you are absolutely right that a significant number of people would like a compromise; I created a thread and the results were interesting:

Remote working preferences (in the longer term)

This is question for people who do jobs that can, at least in part, be done by working from home. Obviously this question doesn't apply to everyone as there are many jobs that cannot be done from home. When this situation is over, what would your preferred working be? Working from home all...

www.railforums.co.uk

I have a similar problem with low Advance fares. The bus from my village to the nearest railway station is only hourly. The bus arrives at the station at xx51 each hour. The train service for the unreserved first leg of any journey departs at xx58. From the bus stop there is a main road to cross and then lots of steep steps down on to the platform. The bus would not have to be many minutes late for the train to be missed. It’s too stressful waiting in the village for the bus knowing that even if the bus is only 5 minutes late it would mean paying for another full price train ticket. Therefore I have to add one hour to the beginning of my journey.

Many people within the rail industry really aren't keen to have your custom; that needs to change.

 

[ForTheLoveOf]

A catastrophic non regulated revenue flow for some operators.

And I, for one, won't be shedding any tears. For too long people have been milked for designing to leave their car at the station and choosing the environmentally friendly option. At the very least car parking rates should have been regulated like fares.

The notion that parking at some of these rural outpost stations should be chargeable (as Greater Anglia have done at nearly all their stations in the last few years, as the money began getting tight) is frankly absurd, and I'm sure it needlessly puts some potential passengers off bothering.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

And I, for one, won't be shedding any tears. For too long people have been milked for designing to leave their car at the station and choosing the environmentally friendly option. At the very least car parking rates should have been regulated like fares.

The notion that parking at some of these rural outpost stations should be chargeable (as Greater Anglia have done at nearly all their stations in the last few years, as the money began getting tight) is frankly absurd, and I'm sure it needlessly puts some potential passengers off bothering.

To think that NSE (in early days) - prided itself on free off peak parking to stimulate business - ......another world.

 

[mpthomson]

Not what most people get though, is it?

Certainly is at the moment, in fact its the only thing you'll get!

 

[Envoy]

Currently there is no incentive to use the train, case in point myself and my father need to travel from Newcastle Central to Droitwich Spa. For a standard ticket one way for the two us comes to just under £645 which is beyond extortion.

Your father is probably able to have a Senior Railcard - which would reduce his fare by around a third = £30 from railways or £10 via Tesco Clubcard vouchers. You have chosen to travel on a Friday - which is usually the most expensive day due to high demand. I suggest you try splitting the tickets into Newcastle > York; York > Derby and Derby > Droitwich and you should find a much lower price - around £51 one way each (no Railcard) and travelling on a Tuesday.

If doing a return trip between Newcastle & Droitwich - you might find it cheaper to buy advanced single (one way) tickets with Trans Pennine Express between Newcastle and Manchester plus advance single tickets between Manchester & Stafford plus a return between Stafford & Droitwich.