Is driving ever cheaper than trains for a single person?
Posted by gintokireddit@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 170 comments
Say if someone was to commute by train to a neighbouring town, is it financially cheaper than running a car?
What if someone was to use the local bus most days, but go to the occasional (say 1x month) self-funded vocational training in local cities or towns by train? At a certain level of driving experience (to lower insurance) would driving become cheaper?
zombiezmaj@reddit
1 place I worked train was £80 a week. But petrol only cost me £40 and parking was free... then had the convenience of an hour extra in bed asleep in the morning as didnt need to catch the earlier train.
Had there been parking charges though the train may have worked out cheaper.
mckjerral@reddit
Petrol cost £40, but the ownership, maintenance and insurance of a car costs more than petrol.
May well still be cheaper on balance, but as the OP mentions cheaper insurance I'm guessing they're at the insurance alone being 100s a month.
h00dman@reddit
If you're including general running costs then you can't really compare. Nobody owns a car just to get to work.
superioso@reddit
I wouldn't have owned a car if I didn't need it to get to work. I since left that job and got rid of the car as it wasn't used much.
M90Motorway@reddit
Yes but people tend to want a life outside of work. They want to participate in leisure activities and visit friends and family-which a car makes so much easier (unless you live in London).
superioso@reddit
Surprisingly a life can be easily had without driving, and sometimes driving instead of taking the bus or simply walking is more difficult - like dealing with parking. And this was just in a northern city.
BladesMan235@reddit
If I didn’t have a car it would take me at minimum, double the amount of time to get wherever I wanted to go in my home city, and that’s if the bus or trains ran absolutely perfectly on schedule at all times. I’d also have long walks at either end of the journey and have to arrive inconveniently early for any thing I had planned
superioso@reddit
Like I said, you can still get there by public transport, so it's not like a car is necessary to have a life. It might not be as convenient but it's still fine.
And when you say double, there's a big difference between double of 30 mins or double of 4 hours.
geesegoosegeesegoose@reddit
I got my car when I got a job where I needed to drive to work as I finished at 10pm and buses were dire in the area and stopped running by then. I'd lived happily in that house doing other jobs that I used the train or my bike to get to but I got offered this job that made it financially worthwhile to buy and run a car. Eventually moved to an area with actually functioning public transport and sold it.
SeamasterCitizen@reddit
raises hand
SeniorBit7051@reddit
People do just that
PierreTheTRex@reddit
Many people own cars just to get to work, especially households with two cars
AdmRL_@reddit
You absolutely can compare.
I spent £4k on my car 8 years ago - £500 a year.
I spend on average about £2.5k a year on fuel - £3k total.
My average spend over those 8 years on MOT & Service is £320 - £3.3k total.
Car tax is £20 a year - £3.32k total
Insurance is about £350 - £3.67k total a year.
So yeah, a fair bit cheaper than £80 a week on the train, about £500 cheaper + I still have about £800 value in the car, so if I sold and bought another £4k car, that drops the cars overall cost even further. Can't sell your used train tickets.
mckjerral@reddit
I mean some people do, but even if you don't, your twice a day journey obviously attracts a decent percentage of those costs. Not saying you need to account for them all.
TheNecroFrog@reddit
Right but at that point you’re comparing apples to oranges.
mckjerral@reddit
The OP asked about the cost comparison between the two. The known costs are the train ticket Vs petrol, parking, car and running costs.
Both have their incidentals when things don't work out, and both have their pros and cons as commuting options
_Cridders_@reddit
The difference is your tax/MOT/insurance etc won't really change by using the car more, that's already money down if you use it or not
zombiezmaj@reddit
So if you really get down to comparisons, time is money. I get paid £20ph for work... driving over commuting saves me 3.5hours which is £70 per day of my time saved. No not literally money but the time I claim back, the extra sleep I get to have, the time I get for hobbies and family and friends... driving was worth it.
I now wfh though which highlights that even more. I get so much work done and also so much housework done because there's more time and energy
mckjerral@reddit
The train over driving saves me 30+ minutes a day, as well as a couple of actual quid, almost like not everyone has the same circumstances as you 🤷🏻♂️
zombiezmaj@reddit
Yes thats the point of posts like these 😅
BabaYagasDopple@reddit
Right but by this logic, the top commenter had wiggle room of approx 2k for their running costs (insurance mot service and any repairs), but, they were saving an hour a day.
Public transport often just doesn’t compare.
mckjerral@reddit
I save half an hour a day by taking the train rather than driving 🤷🏻♂️ and a train ticket is cheaper than parking.
Sometimes it does compare, and it's entirely situational which way around that is, but the OP clearly knows their options and was just asking about the costs involved, but everyone is desperate to tell them they need to drive.
BabaYagasDopple@reddit
Just because it works for you, and not for most over people, doesn’t mean they’re ‘desperate’ to tell OP to drive 😂
evenstevens280@reddit
The first car I bought was purely for commuting. I still did leisure travel by train and bike.
minadequate@reddit
Lots of people do when they are in a couple. I don’t own a car but we have friends who both work a significant drive away and couldn’t do the commute any other way. They can’t carpool and one works a doctors schedule while the other works office hours. They bought the second car due to this job situation (we’ve known them since before one had a job and before the second car). On weekends they often lend us a car as they don’t need 2. Apart from to get to work.
Again me and my partner don’t have a car, but if I got a new job we would probably have to get one… and I’ve worked places where colleagues have been pressurised into buying a car because in architecture you need to be able to visit sites.
glytxh@reddit
Convenience is valuable.
Having to rely on public transport makes things more difficult than they need to be. You’re at the whim of a million moving parts you have absolutely no agency over.
SeventySealsInASuit@reddit
How is driving possibly more convenient, if I have to drive that's a huge block of wasted time. On public transport only a tiny snipit is actually involved in the traveling so I can get on with work, or leissure during that time.
Just__John@reddit
Have you written this backwards??? I get im my car directly outside my house and park directly outside work, radio on, AC/Heater on, not stuck in some smelly bus/train + walking to said bus/train with a random crackhead and spending 4x as long getting to my destination
SeventySealsInASuit@reddit
At least for me I have to get on the train 2-3 minutes and get off the train 2-3 minutes. The entire time inbetween I spend reading and/or working exactly as I would if I was at home. Even if that actual travelling section took 2 hours longer I have lost less time in my life than if I was driving for anything over 10 minutes.
Misskinkykitty@reddit
With a personal vehicle, you can reach your direct destination in minutes rather than hours without further public transport, taxis or walking.
Last time I attempted to use the trains, there were four separate cancellations. The train comes once every hour. Miserable winter experience.
AutomaticInitiative@reddit
I travel from Blackpool to Surrey on the train several times a year for work and what should be 4.5 hours of travel is regularly 6+ and on a couple of extreme situations, 10+ hours. Considering running a car for this but it would mean I would probably end up walking a lot less and would be a net negative.
glytxh@reddit
I have a friend that lives 20 minutes away by car. 40 minute round trip. £20 ish uber.
Or I could spend nearly the same on a train, and two separate busses, to make the same journey that first takes me to the nearest city before doubling back on myself. 3 hour round trip.
AutomaticInitiative@reddit
Driving to the office is 5 minutes. Walking is half an hour. Public transport is 20 minutes.
glytxh@reddit
Need to travel to a village without direct transport links? That turns a 40 minute journey into a 4 hour round trip with at least one change in the process. Good luck if anything is late.
Need to travel somewhere after 11pm? Hope you’re content with Uber.
Need to be somewhere at short notice? Well that sucks.
mckjerral@reddit
Which is nothing to do with accounting for the actual financial costs of having a car rather than thinking it's just the cost of petrol and parking 🤷🏻♂️
Not everything is an argument
pix1985@reddit
It does when you run late and have to pay for a taxi to the station, or miss it and have to swap your ticket for a peak one.
glytxh@reddit
Or you get greeted with the dreaded bus replacement service and all of a sudden your journey takes 3 times as long.
jimmybiggles@reddit
and if i own a car and get the train? still paying for the car + maintenance... yes, less miles on the car so it may last longer (or less, depending how little you drive it!)
so train would still have those "costs" of having a car
mckjerral@reddit
😂
jimmybiggles@reddit
good response...
mckjerral@reddit
No shit if you have a car and take the train you still paying for the car either way.
jimmybiggles@reddit
your whole spiel was that driving costs more as you have to pay for the car plus petrol, and that the train was just the train fare...
well no, if you already have a car you'll be paying for the car and the train fare, so for those of us who have a car, it makes more sense to use the car (assuming similar time/cost for train vs driving)
mckjerral@reddit
Given the OP was asking about train Vs running a car then they are presumably not one of those people.
zombiezmaj@reddit
My insurance is £310 a year. Tax £150 a year.
Even with that still £48 a week. But that's only weeks Im working. When its just sat there thats £8 per week.
Yes MOT and maintenance but average over last 4 years has been approx £250 per year. Which is still only £5 per week
So grand total on a week Im working £53 plus an extra hour in bed in the morning plus obviously home sooner too.
jaa101@reddit
The big one is depreciation. How much value is your car losing every year?
Misskinkykitty@reddit
Are people genuinely buying cars in the hopes they retain their value?
My shitbox has actually increased on the second-hand market. I have absolutely no idea why.
geesegoosegeesegoose@reddit
No, obviously not. No one buys a car expecting it to appreciate, but depreciation is a real cost in owning a car. It's just been a weird market recently where cars have held their value or appreciated in some cases, but that's not typical.
Misskinkykitty@reddit
Personally, I don't buy items with their future cost in mind, especially not essential transportation.
superioso@reddit
Depreciation is a still a cost of driving. Not everyone wants to buy a £500 shitbox and have it die on the motorway.
Misskinkykitty@reddit
My very first shitbox was £500. It refuses to die and still manages to pass every MOT.
Modern cars straight from the showroom are often the ones that randomly die on the motorway.
zombiezmaj@reddit
100% this. My shitbox is worth £400 and has maintained that value for nearly a decade because thats the scrap metal value 🤣 she passes every MOT, starts everytime and is now 26 years old
superioso@reddit
Cars are still complex machines with many moving parts. Those all wear and will eventually fail, which gets more likely with age.
Misskinkykitty@reddit
Just like public transport, but the buses and trains break down on a weekly basis.
My cars (only two) have survived 29 years combined with zero breakdowns.
AdmRL_@reddit
The fact you can sell the car at all would be a benefit over the train option, your train tickets deprectiate 100% the moment you use it.
CarpeCyprinidae@reddit
Mines currently worth few quid more than when I bought it. Inflation has made used cars more valuable
Wd91@reddit
Accounting for depreciation only goes in favour of the car.
No one is buying a train, there is no asset. Cars do depreciate but they can still be sold.
zombiezmaj@reddit
My car is 26 years old and has been written off twice because its only worth £400 but it doesn't lose more than that because the scrap metal is currently still that value 😅 depreciation stopped being a thought over a decade ago... and tbh is only something that affects brand new cars which it would affect them whether driven or sitting in the drive.
Its a mootpoint for my current career anyway as I work from home, my car insurance was only £240 this year fully comp still... and now my petrol is £0 for work related activities
mckjerral@reddit
And the OPs insurance is clearly a lot more than that. Not all car journeys are quicker than train journeys.
The OP asked for the costs, when they're not getting the train to work it's £0
Zavodskoy@reddit
Okay but now also include how much all your social travel by train / bus also costs you a month
yoho1234@reddit
Can’t put a price on an extra free hour a day in bed and not commuting with the general public. Would take that over whatever extra the running costs would be.
RevStickleback@reddit
I used to live in Bracknell and work in Marlow. Driving generally took about an hour, do to door, but was much cheaper, and much quicker, than public transport.
The office moved to Reading, and I thought that would be great, and much quicker. Sadly the office is in the centre of Reading, and parking would be too expensive, so public transport is the only option, which is also about an hour door to door going in, but a little quicker coming home. Thankfully I only have to go in once a month,
mckjerral@reddit
🤷🏻♂️ right, but the OP was asking about the actual costs, of which for the train the ticket is the sum, whereas for a car petrol is not.
For me it's cheaper and quicker for me to take the train to work, and I still sometimes choose to drive. I'm not advocating for one or another.
ARobertNotABob@reddit
Also, I'll wager it was pre-Covid, since when we've had 50% increased prices.
Clear-Security-Risk@reddit
That doesn't count the amortisation of the cost of the car & its maintenance. Cars in general are expensive to run.
Ivan_Dobsky_MD@reddit
It’s not just the driving costs to consider. There’s also parking. That can get pretty expensive.
MrMrsPotts@reddit
And the car! People always ignore that first you use to buy a car
Think_Preference_611@reddit
The UK is a buyers market for used cars, you can buy a perfectly decent car for 2k.
Unless you live in London or in the centre of a few other major cities you will also find yourself in need of a car quite often, not just for commuting, so for most people it's not a "buy a car or take the train to work" scenario, it's more like "buy a car anyway and leave it at home and take the train or just take the car".
Logically taking the train should almost always work out cheaper, trains transport many more people so there's economies of scale, plus they run on rails which are far more energy efficient. It's mind boggling how in the UK trains can work out more expensive, especially when you consider that half of what you pay for the fuel you put in a car is tax, but somehow that's real life.
ZekkPacus@reddit
Where are all these perfectly reasonable cars for £2k?
10+ year old bog standard hatchbacks are going for £6k+
MrMrsPotts@reddit
It used to be a buyers market but I don't think it has been since covid
AutomaticInitiative@reddit
I am not a driver, and the amount of times I find myself "in need of a car" is not a lot and it's usually a gig somewhere else that finishes near midnight.
headphones1@reddit
And everything associated with having the car. People always forget to include this. Just look at the top comment.
redunculuspanda@reddit
If you need to drive to the train station it might work out cheaper to park at the destination. It’s getting towards £10 a day at my local station
EnjoyableBleach@reddit
Depends on your specific situation, we can't answer it for you. You'll need to do a comparison between the cost of the two options.
But in a lot of cases commuting in a car is much cheaper than train.
ben_jamin_h@reddit
This is impossible to answer apart from on your own personal terms.
What is the cost of the train ticket from and to the stations you nee to use?
How much is the petrol to and from the place you want to visit - What's the cost of fuel, how much fuel does your vehicle need, what kind of fuel?
How much is parking?
All of these are different for every journey. There's no one answer.
Maleficent-Alps9208@reddit
I am in the South East, car is far cheaper for me
Large-Associate6746@reddit
Yes. Most of the time in my experience.
SkeletorOnLSD@reddit
It depends on what you drive. I ride a mid range motorcycle, so fuel cost is always lower for me. I recently did Hull to Nottingham round trip on about £15 of fuel. Even with current prices, it's less than £20.
julemeister@reddit
I cycled for a year and got rid of my car. I got a car club membership if I ever needed one. Then cycled or got the bus or train. Trains I could take my bike. Went everywhere I wanted to go for cheap. Saved about £100 a month just in the maintenance, tax and insurance. Not to mention having to buy another car at some point. Pays to buy a bike repair tool kit though.
Ordinary_Barber_6260@reddit
Depends if you also value your time.
SeventySealsInASuit@reddit
Also how exactly you value your time. I like public transport because its not just time wasted driving, I can read, work etc. Other people prefer cars for slighly shorter journey times.
Both save time in different ways.
deathmetalbestmetal@reddit
I would imagine for most people for most journeys, the travel time is massively shorter by car.
M90Motorway@reddit
I think the train would usually take less time if you are going quite far. A trip into a major city would be faster likely. It’s when you don’t live near a train station or have to take the bus then the driving time will likely be shorter.
Strong_Access_8179@reddit
The travel time to nearly anywhere except downtown is massively shorter by car for me, and I live in Birmingham, very much not the middle of nowhere. Even going downtown, the car can win depending on how well the half-hourly trains match up with the time I want to be where I'm going.
SeventySealsInASuit@reddit
That is fair, it definitely does depend on how close you are to the station and then obviously trains come out looking better the longer the journey itself is.
V65Pilot@reddit
When I visited my friends I calculated it was faster and cheaper to drive. Leave my house, get in the car, drive 60 miles, pull up in their driveway. have a great weekend. About 4 gallons of fuel, around £35 both ways, took about 3 hours each way. Or..... Leave my house, walk 1/4 mile to bus stop, take bus to train station, get on train, go into London, catch another train, and then change trains later, arrive near my friends house, walk two miles or take an Uber. About £50 both ways... took about 4 1/2 hours each way.
Reallyboringname2@reddit
I drive 1000 miles a month for the princely sum of around £10 because I charge from home.
I could drive 100 miles and back on one charge for £1 or pay £50 return by train.
Rextherabbit@reddit
Depends.
If you’re in a position and can work on the commute then that makes your travel time productive, so if you factor in your time as well train can be an attractive option.
Familiar9709@reddit
You need to take the full cost of owning a car into account for a fair comparison. Insurance, depreciation, maintenance, etc etc etc
cdh79@reddit
Considering the "true" cost of running a car is estimated to be between 40p and £1.20 per mile (obviously depends on the car). The train can easily be cheaper.
I_will_never_reply@reddit
A daily ticket into Cardiff from 25 miles away is under £4 a day return. It would take a very efficient car and free parking to compete with that. I am assuming you'd also own the car anyway, it is obviously even better if you can cut out owning one at all
Confident_Many5900@reddit
fuel wise yes, also it's generally faster unless you're going to central London or somewhere with no parking
but also the cost of the car itself, plus insurance, service, tax, parking permits, maintenance... the problem is you either buy into that and give yourself the option or your don't, but after you did it's not something you factor in when deciding how you're going to get somewhere
but the problem is trains are slow, infrequent and expensive, plus for a lot of people not even accessible unless you drive to the station in the first place, at which point you're forced to buy into having a car
ClockAccomplished381@reddit
Yes it's very often cheaper to drive.
Bizarrely however people frequently ignore rail transport to airports in favour of expensive taxis. Gatwick for example has a train station literally at the airport where you can buy advance tickets for like a tenner or pay £80+ for a cab.
tinyriiiiiiiiick_@reddit
For me, Preston to Manchester is cheaper on the train than electricity + parking (the parking, mostly), plus I don’t waste time stuck in traffic. I think driving into a city generally is worse than trains tbh
ShortDevelopment905@reddit
Yes, generally far, far cheaper.
The only time they ever come close to being similar in cost is if you're lucky enough to be either young or old enough to own a railcard AND booking in advance.
If you have to pay full whack on the train you're looking at twice the cost of driving, and if it's rush hour and you live in the London commuter belt it can be 3 x or 4 times cheaper to drive. If you have free parking arrangements, there's really no contest and no reason to ever get the train.
Tora-bora83@reddit
The OP said about the costs of running a car. Dependent on age, just the insurance alone could make it cost prohibitive. Factor in tax, MOT, servicing and repairs and fuel over a year and public transport may well work out cheaper
ShortDevelopment905@reddit
It's still car imo.
Where I am is 30 mins from a major city and a season ticket on the train to that major city is £7k per year.
A little runaround car can be run for £3k.
2003bluecat@reddit
I’d say the majority of people in the UK would t have to pay £7k per year to commute to work via train. And even if they did, I’d guess that running a car would cost a lot more than £3k once you account for parking.
SeventySealsInASuit@reddit
£7k a year is about right for comuting into London but parking alone in London would be more than it costs most people I know to use the train.
Think_Preference_611@reddit
You can just not pay for parking, and pay the occasional parking fine, actually works out cheaper in London.
glasgowgeg@reddit
You can get an annual season ticket from Glasgow to Edinburgh for £3,192/year, allowing unlimited travel between both cities, and any stop en-route.
£7k sounds like you're probably nearer London, which maybe isn't the most representative for the average person in this country.
evenstevens280@reddit
A return train from my town to Bristol costs less than the petrol would cost to do the same trip, and it's 25 minutes faster, and I don't have to pay for parking
mckjerral@reddit
Ignoring the cost of my car and all running costs it is cheaper and quicker for me to get a train to work.
Parking (even subsidised) is more than the train ticket (peak day return), and the train takes 10 minutes where even in light traffic the drive is 20+.
Anyone living close to good transport and working in a city centre is likely to have a similar story.
Driving might still be preferable (I do if the train times don't work on a given day or I need to do something other than coming straight home), but it's not hard for it to be more efficient to use public transport.
Unlucky-Jello-5660@reddit
Depends how you value your time aswell. My old commute was a 50 minute drive or 3 and a half hours on public transport.
So spending an extra 6 hours traveling a day is not worth the savings in car maintenance for instance.
mattl1698@reddit
one of the big things you need to consider is how you get to the train station.
my nearest train station is at least a half hour bus ride on a bus that only comes once an hour, and the bus stop is over a mile away from my house (a dangerous walk too). takes about an hour to get to the platform plus then the time to wait for the train if it doesn't coincide with the bus arrival.
my time, and physical/mental effort regarding the awful walk to the bus, is way too valuable to me for a trip like that to be worthwhile for me.
Limp-Archer-7872@reddit
Depends on the cost of parking at the destination.
In addition a lot of people don't appreciate the cost per mile of owning a vehicle and just how competitive public transport is in comparison.
Coenberht@reddit
I tried going to work by train for a few weeks. For me, its 15 minute journey and loads of trains on the route. However, my experience was that it just wasn't sufficiently reliable. I was getting lates on my work record and risking a warning, so I had to go back to my car.
dontjustexists@reddit
How far is the neighbouring town? Depending on distance and infrastructure an ebike (or normal bike) can fill the niche of cheap transport
BabaYagasDopple@reddit
I’m yet to many circumstances in my life where public transport has worked out cheaper tbh.
Even in the few situations public transport has been cheaper, it hasn’t been by much and it’s been far less convenient,
Racing_Fox@reddit
In my experience driving is cheaper
But that’s also because I use my car for a lot more than just place to place. If I literally never travelled anywhere else then idk
PsychologicalDish430@reddit
Always, my train ticket to work would be £25 return a day, or EV journey costs £1.20 in electric.
spindledick@reddit
It's £32 for the train or roughly £3 in the car, not to mention the time it takes.
Jazs1994@reddit
Until recently it was always cheaper driving to London (Stratford/Westfield parking) 4 hour round trip was about £15 cheaper. Also barely any time saved and didn't have to rely on the unreliable trains.
Checked a service to London and it kind about 20 both ways which is a much better
Mission_Beach_7098@reddit
The answer to this question is vastly different if you already own the car or if you're thinking of buying one.
Lots of answers from people who have convinced themselves that the cost of fuel is the only cost of driving. Depreciation, maintenance, insurance etc etc all have to be paid one way or another.
UnCommonSense99@reddit
An electric car is amazingly cheap for commuting. Almost no servicing costs and overnight charging is 4x cheaper than petrol.
Bonus, if you are not driving, you can use your car to power your house in the day, then recharge with much cheaper nighttime electricity.
tobotic@reddit
If you don't include the approximately £16k purchase price, sure.
Trains are great value if you ignore the cost of tickets too.
jaa101@reddit
Don't forget depreciation.
dwair@reddit
I live in Cornwall. Before the first Covid lock down, I discovered that it was cheaper to hire a car, buy fuel, drive to Bristol airport, fly to Marrakech and do the same return than it was to get a train to London and back. This was all using standard tickets and prices.
I haven't priced it recently but I'd guess it would be similar.
Frohus@reddit
the question should be - are trains ever cheaper than driving?
Long_Repair_8779@reddit
In most cases I’ve found driving to be anywhere from around the same price, to vastly cheaper.
On my birthday I wanted to take a journey from Brighton to London, and come back the next day. There was two of us. They wanted £40 each way! So £160 total for the two of us!!! Forget that. I drove, parked in Croydon for free, and got the tube in. Took slightly longer, but all in it cost around £20.
I’d have much preferred the train as I felt rotten the next day, but what am i going to do? Pay that much for a 1H train journey? Hell no.
SeventySealsInASuit@reddit
The fair between London and Brighton is £10 each way assuming you don't have a discount (which you should if you travel at all regularly).
I went the other way with a friend recently and it cost us £24 between us for a return.
Long_Repair_8779@reddit
Maybe it’s changed then but at the time (not booking more than 24 hours in advance, I just checked the prices the night before, about 18 hours before travel) and the cheapest fare was £40 one way. Not even a flexi/all day ticket
SeventySealsInASuit@reddit
Potentially the main service wasn't running on your birthday and you had to take the gatwick express? That is significantly more expensive than the normal service tbf though it mostly just exists to fleece foreign tourists.
Spare_Knowledge_8455@reddit
Yes, look at Peterborough to Cambridge.
Way cheaper, more reliable, and easy to drive. Even with extortionate parking.
Add in the family, and it's a no brainer..
Terrible really, as I'd rather get a train.
Billy_Rizzle@reddit
Yes. My car cost just as much to get to work a month (fuel, tax and insurance) as to getting the train with a monthly train ticket. Parking is free at my work. It could cost less if I had a more fuel efficient car which would also most likely have a cheaper VED tax.
So a 20-25min journey vs an hour journey for the same cost is a no brainer.
JohnCasey3306@reddit
I have a small fuel efficient car for commuting.
Nearest town -- car beats train A return ticket to the nearest large town (20 minute journey) is £13 ... My fuel cost is less than half that.
London -- car beats train Doing a masters near New Cross. An any time rail return for me is £55. If I drive, the fuel is approximately £15. I typically book parking for the day av. £12. For central London, train would certainly beat car due to parking.
Long journey -- car beats train I have to work occasionally in the Midlands. The round trip is approx 270 miles. That is £35 in fuel (a lot of motorway). The train to the same town costs £95.
Car wins hands down. Plus it's more reliable. Plus it's more comfortable.
For additional cost context, the car is tax exempt and my insurance is approximately £10 per month.
suckingalemon@reddit
Frequently.
reditcyclist@reddit
Unless you are really out in the sticks somewhere cars are a money pit and so in my eyes a luxury. Unless you run a reliable (rare) old banger then it's unlikely you'll come out in top with a car.
audigex@reddit
Yes, electric cars can be straight up cheaper than the train for a single person
It would cost me less to lease and charge my car to drive an hour each way 5 days a week than the season ticket would cost
And if you already own the car for other reasons and are only considering marginal costs for a single trip, it’s not even close - I can drive 2 hours to Manchester and back for £3 of electricity. Even with parking (which I rarely need), it’s markedly cheaper than the train
mydadisyourdad2@reddit
Trains should be cheaper. We want more people using public transit, emptier roads for those who have to drive and better for the environment. I know we're nationalising so the government is apparently doing something about it. Hopefully it results in cheaper travel for all.
happyhippohats@reddit
I think it mostly depends on parking costs.
Icy_Gap_9067@reddit
£7 a day at my nearest station, ridiculous.
happyhippohats@reddit
That's insanely cheap compared to where I am. It's about £4 an hour here
smushs88@reddit
I mean discounting the ‘cost’ of wear and tear the last time I drove up to Manchester from down south it cost me £90 in fuel.
If I had got the train cheapest ticket I could find even with trying to breaking the trip up trick was £160.
Just not viable as a cost efficient way to travel in this country.
D0wnb0at@reddit
Depends how much you are going to use the car and how many trips on the train you are going to do.
You have to buy a car, insure it, tax it, fuel it, service/mot it.
Train is just 1 payment per use.
If you already have a car and wondering if it’s cheaper for fuel than the train, then YES. Trains are much more expensive than fuel.
But if it’s still cheaper to buy/run a car than a train, it would depend on how much you travel.
MissionLet7301@reddit
Yeah, if you already own a car and are paying to run it, then the price of doing 6k miles a year is not that much more than the price of doing 3k miles a year - the fuel is expensive, but tyre wear and mechanical wear and tear is pretty nominal per mile.
It's monumentally more expensive to do 3k miles a year by car than not owning a car though - especially when you consider the price of, well, the car.
If you already own a car then the price of a journey + parking to the next town over is maybe comparably priced but slightly more convenient than getting the train, but if you don't already own a car then it's going to be more expensive to buy one solely to avoid a daily 20 minute train ride and the odd taxi fare.
petiweb5@reddit
You summed it up pretty nicely. One aspect is how much OP will use the car, but the other is where will OP use the car, eg where are they going on holiday? If the answer is eg Wales, or Scotland to spend time in nature, not having a car is not an option.
P8L8@reddit
Hugely depends on your situation. Monthly finance on a car? Could be £150+ p/m immediately, then fuel, insurance, tax, MOT’s, repairs, parking.
Lunaspoona@reddit
Its cheaper for me to drive than get the train. Even with parking. Theres a car park right next to work at £8 a day. There's also one a 10 min walk for £3.50 all day. The train is £9. I am sure if you added up the insurance and MOT it might balance out. But I also use the car for other things, second job, shopping, visiting people, days outside etc. Overall I think my car is the cheaper option. Plenty of people do manage with public transport though, they don't really seem any better or worse off.
CassetteLine@reddit
Most of the time, yes, and by a lot.
If you already have a car, so don’t need to count the purchase cost and insurance then it’s going to be substantially cheaper.
My commute to work costs about £6 a day in fuel. Public transport would be £25 or so.
There’s also the time cost. Door to door driving is about 30 minutes. Public transport is 2 hours. So my total commute goes from 1 hour to 5. However much you value your time at, that’s a massive cost.
It annoys me because we should be encouraging people to use public transport. It either needs to be more convenient, more pleasant, or cheaper than driving. Currently it’s none of those.
tuppenycrane@reddit
There are so many factors others have already mentioned. But also consider the fact that a car is your own personal transport which you can get on and off whenever you want. You can’t “miss” the car, but you can miss a train which then has a domino of other consequences, the cost of that you can determine yourself. At least for me, this is a big boon of having a car when I’m travelling anywhere outside London.
Jesterstear99@reddit
Unless you are going to London, driving is way cheaper, especially if you have an EV with enough range to go there & back without public charging.
It isn't hard to pay less than 2p a mile charging an EV at home.
Yes you have to insure & tax the car, but if you own a car you did that already, so the only out of pocket expense is fuel/electricity.
If you are driving enough miles to wear the tyres out, then you'd have to factor tyre costs into the equation, probably a penny a mile if you have expensive tyres.
If you have to pay silly money to park at your destination then that might make a significant difference, but apparently you have to pay to park at a railway station too (I wouldn't know, I never use the train!)
hhfugrr3@reddit
I guess it's going to depend. For me, if I'm working anywhere in London that driving either my car or motorbike is much cheaper than the train. If I'm going into Oxford then the train wins on cost, but not by enough to make me take the train.
Sufficient-Cold-9496@reddit
It all depends upon if its cheaper/more convenient.
Drive to the Railway station, park, pay to park, buy a ticket and catch a train to somewhere near your location, pay for public transport/a tax to take you to where you need to be and sometimes more taxi fares etc if public transport doesnt go where you want to go when you are there.
Vs Drive to destination, if required pay to park upon arrival, if you want to go elsewhere once you are at your destination then you are free to do so.
The only way the train would be an option would be if its a regular commute that didnt involve a lengthy drive to a railways station, or if going to a major city such as London for a break, if going away to a holiday place in a rurual location then rail is out of the question.
ashyboi5000@reddit
Yes. Or atleast was a couple of years a go. Could even pay for the parking and total journey took half the time.
VOOLUL@reddit
If you aren't including the initial cost of the car in the calculation, and you're savvy with parking, then definitely.
I have a car, so if it's the difference between buying a return train ticket versus driving, and I know where I can park for free, then I will do it.
If I can't park for free, then it can get more difficult. Depending on the area parking can be ridiculously expensive, you're talking £12+ for a day.
If arriving after 6pm, then parking restrictions can mean places that used to cost money, or need specific parking permits, then become free until the next morning. Which makes the deal even better.
I used to get the train to my girlfriend in the city centre 30 miles away. Then I realised that I could park for free, stay overnight and then leave before 8am. I have an electric car so it is basically free.
Misskinkykitty@reddit
Almost a guarantee.
A return train ticket to my local city is £35. That's my entire weekly petrol cost, which covers that journey eight times with leasure trips elsewhere on the weekends.
Sea-Still5427@reddit
You'd have to do a comparison based on actual figures for a specific car, driver and bus/train fare, but for me (F60, 6yrs no claims) it's abount £1K a year to keep a basic car on the road before you drive it anywhere or anything wears out, breaks or gets damaged. Probably double that if you're under 25 and male. Contingency budget another £1K if the car's over 10 years old.
So if you're buying a car primarily for commuting and public transport's viable, bus/train's going to be cheaper. If you have other reasons to need one, like occasional trips to other locations for work, ferrying kids, seeing family or getting out at weekends, the convenience may justify the expense.
Wizzpig25@reddit
Frequently. Public transport to my place of work would be about aӣ15 a day and take about two hours each way.
Driving is 30 minutes each way and costs about £5 in fuel.
So I am 3 hours and £10 a day better off by driving.
split-tennisball@reddit
Check the costs and add it up
TazTazTAZTazTaz_@reddit
The only worthwhile reply.
split-tennisball@reddit
OP just wants someone else to do the thinking for them.
PanakinMcSkywalker@reddit
It costs my partner £110 minimum to get a train from our place to her parents. Not including getting to the train station 15 miles away.
Costs us £55 in petrol to do the same 400 mile round trip from Silverstone to Morecambe
Randystarbuxx@reddit
Buying the car is a significant outlay
33backagain@reddit
Cost of a car and servicing and petrol and insurance and tax is probably quite a bit more than a train fare. But you can use the car for other things outside of work and it’s probably a quicker and more convenient way of getting to work in the first place.
petiweb5@reddit
Agreed. If OP does not have a car yet, they need to consider buying and running (fuel, MOT, servicing, repairing, maintenance) the car too, not just a single journey cost.
Boogaaa@reddit
Motorcycle. Even cheaper than a car to run, easier to learn how to do basic maintenance/ service work, and you don't have to pay for parking becuase you can basically park anywhere that isn't obstructing a walkway. But the downside is that you always have to look for something appropriate to chain it to for fear of some absolute litte cunt wheeling it off or sticking it in a van and driving off.
n0d3N1AL@reddit
Of course, even with a high performance EV it's significantly cheaper.
LaughingGravy1001@reddit
I live quite near to my local train station. I have to commute to London for work sometimes and I quite like that I can walk 2 mins in still a half asleep state, get on, go back to sleep and wake up a couple of hours later 10 mins from where I need to be. That alone is worth the train fare for me.
BristolEngland@reddit
Oftentimes Uber works out cheaper - especially if more than one of you is going.
PrincessWithNeeds@reddit
depends on the distance and frequency
Success_With_Lettuce@reddit
100% for me, I get, if I’m lucky 26mpg.
I don’t commute. If I do I claim mileage. Otherwise I work abroad or the UK “on site” where literally everything I do is paid by the company.
Every time I want to get a train they seem to be fucked. I feel sorry for those who rely on them.
Jimny977@reddit
My commute into London once a week is a £50 ticket for an hour train, and £6.20 on the tube. I imagine if that was true more regularly then the answer would be yes.
DameKumquat@reddit
If you already own the car for other reasons so you'd be paying the insurance and tax anyway, then yes, often.
If you had to buy a car and maintain it just for that trip, very unlikely.
ourmanflint27@reddit
Aside from parking, factor in car maintenance, but it doesn't seem that hard to calculate. You've given very little information for anyone to do the maths for you!
thegrumpy0ne@reddit
It'll cost me 90 minutes of additional time and about an extra £25 compared to the cost of electricity to get to work and back. I'm not accounting for wear and tear, insurance etc, but the car would be sitting there depreciating anyway.
silentdragoon@reddit
Impossible to answer without knowing the costs involved, but yeah trains can be incredibly expensive, especially at peak times and over long distances. I find visiting my mum in Yorkshire from Bristol and returning is just about doable on a tank, and that's £70 at current petrol prices. A return train ticket can be \~£100 using single tickets, splitting, etc, whereas an off-peak return is £186. So if it's just me going, then it's slightly cheaper, if it's me and a bunch of stuff or me and my wife and some stuff then it's way way cheaper.
Reppin-LDN@reddit
Train are a complete ripoff in this country, they make the price high as possible where you wouldn't just buy a car, that shouldnt be a thing ever.
Even better to find someone from work u can ride share with.
Specialist_Emu7274@reddit
Depends on timings, parking and the car itself. I drive and petrol & parking wise it’s often cheaper to drive - I drive a a picanto so not really a gas guzzler. Even last week because of timings it was cheaper to drive & pay for parking at the airport than get public transport. But if you add on insurance and everything else it probably isn’t.
IsOkay_No@reddit
Always, I already own the car but the train ticket, plus the bus ticket there and back.
Surely it’s cheaper right? I don’t actually know but I know if I take a bus to my city centre and back I’m paying £5+ and next to nothing in petrol
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