We'd like to remind Forumites to please avoid political debate on the Forum... Read More »
📨 Have you signed up to the Forum's new Email Digest yet? Get a selection of trending threads sent straight to your inbox daily, weekly or monthly!
Driving or Train - which is cheaper?
Comments
-
I have to drive 4.4 miles to the train station (10 min drive) and parking is free.
1) Which (on the whole) is cheaper for me?
2) Which is cheaper out of the two if doing the following journey?
Car: I can drive 47 miles (1 hour 10 mins) at about 60mpg.
Train: £8.70 plus a 4 mile drive to the station (12 mins and free parking).
Back-of-a-fag-packet estimates :
Driving - call it a gallon of fuel, £1.20 a litre = £5.40 in fuel
Train - £0.80 in fuel + £8.70 train fare = £9.50
Not sure if your driving distances and train fare are one-way or round-trip figures. But on those figures, and based on fuel alone, driving is cheaper. But, if you drive, do you have to pay for parking at your destination ? If so, you need to factor that in - if it's more than a fiver a day to park, then the train looks cheaper.
As others have said, you need to factor in the convenience/time factor. And these calculations ignore the cost of running a car - tax, insurance, MOT, maintenance. As a previous poster said, if you are paying to "run" the car anyway, and you accept that the additional wear and tear for this particular journey is negligible, then you can pretty much ignore these costs. But if this journey is the primary reason for owning the car, then the annual costs really mount up and need to be taken into consideration.0 -
Is the car petrol or diesel? If diesel then use it for the whole journey ... a 4.4 mile run (on a regular - e.g. daily - basis) would be bad for it.0
-
Purely based on fuel costs then its likely costing you around 15p per mile in the car against 11p per mile for the train.
94 miles per day driving = 470 per week x 48 weeks a year = 22,560 miles a year. Probably an additional set of tyres required every year over and above the normal wear and tear you would expect @ £500 say, maybe extra service @ £500 and allow £500 for other repairs = £1500 /22560 = 7p
So train is cheaper for you and you get more time which you cant put a price on. Assuming the trains run on time every time, which they sometimes dont.
If your employer actually pays you 45p for the commute (for the first 10,000 miles) then that will be taxed, I very much doubt your employer will pay you 45p to get to work though, they should be paying you a car allowance and pay you for the business miles upto 45p and you don't pay tax.0 -
Depreciation can be the largest part of running cost of relatively new cars.
That can be accounted any way you want, for example a new car might lose quarter of its value in the first year, and how many miles does it do?
On the other hand I bought my car at 4 years old, for about a quarter the original list price, it is almost 20 years old, and now its depreciation works out at 1.7 pence a mile.
Deprecation how much a mile?
Fuel cost about 11 or 12 pence a mile
Insurance 1 to 3 pence a mile
Annual vehicle tax 0 to 2 pence a mile?
Maintenance, tyres etc 2 to 5 pence a mile ?
That's about 15 to 20 pence plus depreciation
Rail journeys seem to vary from about £1 a mile single, 50 pence a mile day return on the shortest trips, half that for longer trips like to London, down to about 20 or 15 pence a mile on a season ticket, less on the best advance fares.0 -
Deprecation how much a mile?
Fuel cost about 11 or 12 pence a mile
Insurance 1 to 3 pence a mile
Annual vehicle tax 0 to 2 pence a mile?
Maintenance, tyres etc 2 to 5 pence a mile ?
That's about 15 to 20 pence plus depreciation
Deprecation shouldn't be included in this calculation as he already has the car and there is no sale date. He would devalue the car prematurely by putting more mileage on, assuming he didn't drive 22,000 miles a year before. So maybe he would sell with 20,000 or 30,000 more miles than he normally would of. Very hard to say how much that part of the depreciation would be.
He would have to tax and insure it anyway so and the additional maintenance should be included, unless he is thinking about selling the car and using the train only.0 -
Deprecation how much a mile?
Fuel cost about 11 or 12 pence a mile
Insurance 1 to 3 pence a mile
Annual vehicle tax 0 to 2 pence a mile?
Maintenance, tyres etc 2 to 5 pence a mile ?
Insurance and tax have to be paid whether the OP drives or takes the train, so they have no part in the calculation.
The same applies to depreciation, except for the (relatively small) extent to which mileage makes a difference to resale values.0 -
For my commute of approx 50 miles each way, it works out half the price to drive a big mercedes than use the train. That's the whole problem with public transport; far too expensive.0
-
Drive to station and train, total journey time of 22 mins? How long is the walk at the other side?
Although I was just going to say what foxy-stoat had said anyways about actual time taken0
This discussion has been closed.
Confirm your email address to Create Threads and Reply
Categories
- All Categories
- 350.6K Banking & Borrowing
- 253K Reduce Debt & Boost Income
- 453.3K Spending & Discounts
- 243.6K Work, Benefits & Business
- 598.3K Mortgages, Homes & Bills
- 176.7K Life & Family
- 256.7K Travel & Transport
- 1.5M Hobbies & Leisure
- 16.1K Discuss & Feedback
- 37.6K Read-Only Boards