[Closed] Public transport costs - is it a wonder people use cars?

The cost to park would be around £3 so even taking into account the negligible ‘running cost’ of a 4 mile round trip in the car

Cost of the car, insuring the car and running the car all need to be taken into that negligible amount.

Around here its MUCH cheaper than a car. and 4 miles in a car costs you at least £2

Its government policy tho - buses have to pay their way, car drivers are massively subsidised from the general taxpayer.

even taking into account the negligible ‘running cost’ of a 4 mile round trip in the car

I think you need to do the real calcs. That car is costing money every day, even if you don't use it. That said public transport should be better funded to make it cheaper.

Parking is too cheap?

Using car is financially attractive because most costs already paid - depends on time of day - no congestion? - good argument for "road pricing" - most arguments around public transport focus on inconvenience/private space rather than price

Ps Hope Mrs recovers

Did she look around for any deals on family tickets?
We have family day tickets available and they can work out very good value.

TJ - you are very lucky in Edinburgh that you have a publically owned bus service and its so horrific to drive in the city that out of towners use the park and ride as well. The opposite case would be Glasgow.

The cost to park would be around £3

Plus
Fuel
VED allocated for that day
Insurance allocated for that day
Maintenance allocated for that day
Cost of the car allocated for that day
etc

Guaranteed the £8.50 works out cheaper

to me my car cost is a sunk cost, as I guess for the op, so petrol/ wear and tear and parking.

I'm always shocked how much the bus is, but if i didnt have a car that had its mot and insurance paid for then cars likely far more expensive..

i get the train down south once or 2-3 times a month, its £128 each way, car fuel would be circa £55
(slightly more with passengers) but again public transport rates are so so high..

I'm using the train on Saturday for a return trip to Newcastle I'll be there for around 7 hours, it's a 70 mile round trip by car. If I can get on a charger it'll cost me about £5 in fuel and £7 to £14 to park depending where I can park. So total of £12 not including the cost of the vehicle per mile.

A train for just me is £11 return the following week I'm going with my daughter the train with for us both will be £9.35 as I can use my railcard.

Yes it needs to be cheaper but you're not always saving as much as you think.

I have the envious pleasure of working in public transport and it is a well known fact that people largely ignore the sunk costs of car ownership when comparing the price of a journey on bus to driving themselves.

That said, there is a huge need for improvement on the transparency of fares and best price for a given journey, most of the time the first point you find out the cost is when you get on and ask the driver. Public subsidy can go some way to offsetting the cost for more vulnerable groups but it’s fair to say that the bus industry is in somewhat of a crisis at the moment.

No one has pointed out that driving to town in your car is lot more preferable than sitting with all the loser low-lifes and weirdos on the bus...

VED allocated for that day
Insurance allocated for that day
Maintenance allocated for that day
Cost of the car allocated for that day
etc

Well that's not taking into account that you are paying for ved and insurance regardless, assuming you feel the need to have a car for other longer journeys, as most folks do.

What we should be doing is charging VED according to mileage, as an incentive to leave the car at home.

I have 2 cars, which I drive about a total of 2000 miles between them a year. I find it a bit bizarre that I pay significantly more for road tax and insurance than someone who drives 25k a year.

Cost of the car, insuring the car

Fuel
VED allocated for that day
Insurance allocated for that day
Maintenance allocated for that day
Cost of the car allocated for that day

But we need the car so that isn't a fair comparison - we have those costs whether or not we use it on any given day.

What Squirrelking says.

But not using the car for that trip wouldn’t change the cost of the car or the cost to insure it.

It increases the cost per mile though.

Has your wife looked a weekly or monthly pass if this is going to be regular and prolonged occurrence?

It's not just cost .

I can't use public transport for my commute as there is no direct link .

The options available require multiple changes and arrive after , leave before my contracted hours .

this option would also take nigh on 3 hours to do a 20 mile journey if all the links in the chain ran on time .

So I drive 3 times and cycle twice a week .

Cost of the car, insuring the car and running the car all need to be taken into that negligible amount.

No, they don't. The car will be bought and run for a whole host of other uses, not just that single trip into town. Getting the bus for one journey doesn't mean the car can then be sold.

Guaranteed the £8.50 works out cheaper

You don't get any of that back if you do take the bus though. You lot could work for PWC, the amount of creative accounting on display.

Original point stands though - public transport is shit, and it needs subsidising. But you can't just whine about the cost, you need to understand what needs to be done about it. Not voting Tory is a good start.

Has your wife looked a weekly or monthly pass if this is going to be regular and prolonged occurrence?

No because when the girls go back to school she wouldn't be able to use it as the school isn't on a bus route. On days I can't do drop off we are relying on neighbours (we are fortunate to have several neighbours with children at the same school) helping out with school drop off/pick up and she can walk to work.

Ohh, and the school is two miles away without footpaths for some of it so not really an option to walk the girls to school every day.

No, they don’t. The car will be bought and run for a whole host of other uses, not just that single trip into town.

Errrr! What?

No because when the girls go back to school she wouldn’t be able to use it as the school isn’t on a bus route. On days I can’t do drop off we are relying on neighbours helping out with school drop off/pick up and she can walk to work.

Ah! That's a bugger.

Anyway I hope she gets well soon.

^^ Cheers - looking like neck surgery though 🙁 (see my previous post about that particular story - still being run in circles on it)!

So the real issue is how much public transport costs when you already have a car. There is so much dead money in car ownership just by having one, the more miles you do the more this cost is spread out. There is probably a golden ratio of mileage vs initial ownership costs, however trying to calculate this when weighing up whether to take the bus or car is beyond most of us without a complicated spreadsheet algorithm.

Interesting thread. I am always amazed at how heavily subsidised driving is considering how harmful the collective impact of everyone driving everywhere is and the fact that is uses up a scarce resource doing so. The thing is I'm pretty sure I'm in the minority in having this point of view, I think the price of fuel is incredibly good value for money all things considered. I would love to know how far some peoples journeys are that sit in jams in rush hour every single day morning and night. I bet a fair few are less than 5 miles.

So the real issue is how much public transport costs when you already have a car.

Well yes I guess it is. Our local council (Harrogate) claims to be trying to get people to use public transport (good luck with that with all the Range Rover-driving mummies we have) and leave the car at home to reduce congestion around town. But if you already own a car there is no real incentive to take a bus which is more inconvenient and costs more than the fuel, depreciation and parking costs to drive right into the centre.

Driving isn't "subsidised" in any normal sense of the word.

Oh yes it is - massively. roads are paid out of general taxation - whether you own a car or not you pay for roads . Most parking in cities is free or very cheap but is using land that belongs to everyone and is very valuable but is hogged by car drivers at low / no cost. The cost of all the illhealth and deaths caused directly and indirectly by car drivers is paid for out of general taxation. the subsidy depending on what you include is around £1000 per car per year - much more if its city only usage.

If car drivers and car drivers only paid the costs of their driving without subsidy from general taxation then car driving would be massively more expensive

Oh yes it is – massively. roads are paid out of general taxation – whether you own a car or not you pay for roads .

A little disingenuous - most of the roads are needed to also move frieght around and also for the busses themselves to drive on.

Most parking in cities is free or very cheap

It's not TJ most is pay per hour and not exactly cheap.

damage, congestion and the sheer size of roads needed would be much less just for trucks and buses.

Taxation on transport doesn't cover the costs of providing the infrastructure, it's subsidised.

For me though I get tram travel all over Manchester for about 20 quid a week. Amazing value.

Drac - is it the several thousand pounds a year that the land is worth in rental - and most is free on suburban streets

Why should public land be hogged at low or no cost by a minority?

roads are paid out of general taxation – whether you own a car or not you pay for roads

Of course roads are paid for out of general taxation. Roads aren't just used for private cars. Whether you own a car or not, you still need them. They are pretty fundamental to any modern society.

Why should public land be hogged at low or no cost by a minority?

Given the majority of households in the UK have a car I'm not sure why you think it's a minority?

https://www.statista.com/statistics/314912/average-number-of-cars-per-household-in-england/

I use my car cos I can do 4 steps from my front door and plonk my fat arse down in a nice familiar seat. Brmm. Away. And I already pays £400 a month for it (forever!) to Ling so why wouldn't I use the fing.

So my annual car costs are £500 VED, £500 insurance, then say £500 maintenance (I only do a few k per year, so a service every year to 18 months, tyres will last years). So £1500.

Then my car cost me £4600, say I keep it for 4 years and it's value is zero at that point (which it won't be), that's £1150 per year.

So, £2650 per year, excluding fuel. £7.26 per day. Fuel cost for that particular journey of 2 miles: £1.20 at 10mpg.

Don't think I'm missing anything?

Yeah, I'll take the car.

Public transport (apart from trains into London, and the tube) are rubbish and expensive.

How a local 2 mile bus ride costs £2-3 per person when you can sit on the tube and the buses for hours if you wanted going round London, for £6.10 a day maximum, is stupid.

Were public transport a better (cheaper more reliable option) I'd use it more.
I live in Malvern & work in Ledbury so around 10 miles each way so just petrol costs around £3.50. A return ticket is £5.40 so I'd probably spend a bit more (when you take into account VED etc) by using the car.
The issue I have is that there is one train at 6.11am, then the next is 8am. I normally start work at 8am so I'd either have to get up stupid early or be late, every single day.
If I was going in the opposite direction (to Worcester) there's 5.59am, 6.47am, 7.02am, 7.16am, 7.36am, 8.07am...

e subsidy depending on what you include is around £1000 per car per year – much more if its city only usage.

That's a subsidy of 30 billion pounds.

Where has that unusually rounded and precise figure come from?

The train to work is £12 (for a single), it's 23.5 miles so at 40p/mile it's £9.40 (ie £2.60 less expensive to drive). Bonkers!

A return is £19.20 so even then it's £0.40 cheaper to go by car.

Buses just don’t go where I need to be. Not even close

..and buses have lots of horrible, stinky people on them.

My car only usually has just the one horrible, stinky person in it and it goes exactly where that person needs to be.

Guaranteed the £8.50 works out cheaper

It's only any good if it works out cheaper and you can do away with a vehicle. If you will need to have a car anyway for other regular journeys or reasons then the public transport has to be cheaper or significantly more convenient than fuel plus parking costs for that journey.

Getting people to mix up their transport use is the step forward rather than expecting it to be either or.

Cost of Public (much of it is in private ownership) transport is bonkers. And own randomly expensive or stupidly cheap.

I needed to get to Gatwick, from County Durham. Company booked me a flight to Heathrow, and told me to get to Gatwick on the train. Just the train across London was £77, forget the cost of getting to Newcastle, and then the flight south. Train from Darlington to Gatwick, £62. And it was quicker door to door.

If you will need to have a car anyway for other regular journeys or reasons then the public transport has to be cheaper or significantly more convenient than fuel plus parking costs for that journey.

Getting people to mix up their transport use is the step forward rather than expecting it to be either or.

This +1

That said, there is a huge need for improvement on the transparency of fares and best price for a given journey, most of the time the first point you find out the cost is when you get on and ask the driver. Public subsidy can go some way to offsetting the cost for more vulnerable groups but it’s fair to say that the bus industry is in somewhat of a crisis at the moment.

Helen Pidd, the North of England editor for The Guardian, was having a twitter debate about this only the other day:
https://twitter.com/helenpidd/status/1099772164214005760

Deregulation and privitisation was, pretty much nationwide, horrendous for bus passengers. Manchester had, at the last count, about 25 bus operators with a combined total of over 100 different ticket options and prices - all those operators were competing for custom on the busiest routes and then largely ignoring the non-profitable routes so some areas were over-served, many were very under-served and there is zero consistency. Live tracking is very difficult because you could have any one of about 5 different bus companies using that stop.

London is really the only place where buses work well at the moment and the pricing is entirely open and consistent.

Here in Croydon (South London) I think TFL have got it spot on for bus and tram travel. Trains are expensive but kids under 5 travel free on buses and trams across London. 5-10 is around £10 for an oyster card covering the 5 years. 11-15 is £15 and 16+ (in education) is £20.

After the initial purchase of the cards, it's essentially free travel.

For me it's £1.50 per journey with a hopper fare if I get two buses or trams or combo within one hour of beeping in. Capped at £4.50 a day or £20 something a week.

I'm going to drive about 250 miles tomorrow. I haven't used my car all week although I did go to Sainsbury's last Saturday. I have cycled 2 days, and yesterday I caught a train, then 2 tubes, and took a bus. My van is still on the same tank of diesel that I put in sometime in September.

..and buses have lots of horrible, stinky people on them.

I commute by train every day Pannal > Leeds (mainly on shitty 40+ yr old Sprinters run by Northern Fail) so I get to be very intimate with lots of smelly people every single day. I was very embarrassed the day I was stood there in my coat smelling of horse (I absent-mindedly picked up the same coat I had worn the previous evening at my daughter's horse riding lesson). Sorry fellow commuters 🙂

Virgin Trains East Coast, as they used to be known, once quoted me nearly twenty-six thousand pounds for a standard-class season ticket from Leeds to London.

I have a bus stop 100 metres from my front door, but never use it. For a whole 50 pence more for me and the mrs, we can get a taxi into the town centre. No waiting in the rain for a bus that never arrives, and door to door service, for 25p a head.
Our public transport system is ****ed.

@flaperon - well the standard peak day return is £112.....so £70 seems like a reasonable discount!

I commute in to central Cambridge from a village, the journey is about 20 miles each way. Luckily it is on the Guided Bus route, so traffic isn't a large issue. It costs me £25 for a weeks ticket. I rarely use it at the weekend, so it's essentially £5 a day. The petrol would cost me more than that. Not to mention that I would be sat in traffic nearly all the way. Where as I now sit on a bus and watch films/TV, listen to music or read a book.

But if my job wasn't central in the city (or on the bus route) I would have to drive, unless it was possible to bike. I'm lucky in that way.

The problem I have with buses in particular is being at the complete mercy of the bus timetable and even then they are never on time. Sometimes they do not turn up at all, the excuse is they were running late so missed a round to catch up. Then there are the other drivers who never let buses pull out so that adds another 15-20 mins to the journey.

Then you get those people who get on the bus, the bus moves forward and there is another person waiting at the next stop that is literally 200 metres down the same road, bus stops again. In the meantime I have to question why they did not walk a little further down the road and join the person waiting at the other stop.

Worst is a particular bus I used to get called the X78, on more than one occasion a drunk person urinated on the top deck and the urine ran down the front and the stairs, this was at about 6.15 pm and happened too often.

So yes public transport is cheaper, but I would rather pay more to have my own space, my own route and get to a destination on time and in comfort.

How is driving subsidised? The uk motorist puts almost £40bn into the treasury each year in taxes, yet he cost of maintenance of the roads is barely £1bn. Sure money is being invested in the infrastructure but nowhere near as much as is being invested in public transport infrastructure, especially the rail network.

Why shouldn’t public transport users pay their way? I also use public transport and a return bus ticket into town is £7, a one way taxi ride is £15 - £20, a return journey in my car might be less that £7, but as others have pointed out it isn’t as simple as that so.

No way to motorists get it easy or cheap and we’re certainly not subsidised and fossil fuelled cars have just received a massive VED tax hike. Not complaining, we need to be weaned out of our oil burners to EV’s but In the short term it will be a significant windfall for the treasury and the. When we’re all in Evs they’re going to have to dream up a new taxation scheme to make up the tax income losses as the road network will still need to be maintained. So us motorists don’t get it cheap or easy.

How is driving subsidised? The uk motorist puts almost £40bn into the treasury each year in taxes, yet he cost of maintenance of the roads is barely £1bn. Sure money is being invested in the infrastructure but nowhere near as much as is being invested in public transport infrastructure, especially the rail network.

The costs of air pollution are off loaded onto the NHS and the health of the poor (who can't afford cars).
The Greenhouse gas costs are paid for by everyone else eg higher flood insurance.
We all get delayed due to massive congestion (caused by car drivers).
Oil is effectively subsidised in many ways eg IIRC decomissioning costs for North Sea which used to be offloaded on the Government.
HMRC gives you tax relief on business miles for a private car.

"tjagain

damage, congestion and the sheer size of roads needed would be much less just for trucks and buses."

Not true. HGVs and other heavy vehicle cause most of the damage.

"The Generalized Fourth Power Law is the most commonly agreed method to approximate the relative impact of vehicles on roads: the damage caused to the structure or foundations of a road is related the axle weight of the vehicle by a power of four. This means that a six-axle, 44-tonne truck is over 138,000 times more damaging than a typical, small, 1 tonne car (such as a Ford Fiesta) with two axles. "

http://www.freightonrail.org.uk/HotTopicsLorriesCauseMoreDamageToRoadsThanCars.htm

London transport is hugely subsidised. Bus from work to terminal 5 is £1.25. Bus from terminal 5 to home £4.50. Each leg is the same distance (3 miles).

Offpeak travel from terminal 5 to Earl’s Court on the tube is £1.50. That’s from the outskirts of London right into the centre. Off peak starts at 9:30.

Step outside the magic London transport zone and travel starts to cost. We live in what was (very briefly in the olympics) Zone 9. That means the journey to get into Zone 6 costs a lot more than the journey once inside.

"The costs of air pollution are off loaded onto the NHS and the health of the poor (who can’t afford cars)."

But the poor won't pay much tax towards the NHS. The middle and higher earners who tend to be car owners pay the vast majority of the taxes for the NHS. So the health cost of cars are by and large paid by car owners and users.

We looked at public transport over owning a second car. Using season tickets it worked that we save less than £20 a year over using a car and including all the insurance, RFL, running and service costs. The kicker was that after trying it for two weeks before committing to the season ticket we found out that the travel times were tripled over using a car due to the walk to get a bus, the bus journey that went here, there and everywhere before arriving at the destination. Another shorter bus trip and another walk to get to the office.
Train was slightly quicker but more unreliable and was late twice in the week she tried it and still required two bus journeys.
We bought the car.

Why shouldn’t public transport users pay their way? I also use public transport and a return bus ticket into town is £7, a one way taxi ride is £15 – £20, a return journey in my car might be less that £7, but as others have pointed out it isn’t as simple as that so.

Because a bus, tram or train moves a higher density of people around with a lower environmental impact. They don't need to take up parking at the destination and can be used by thousands of people not just one or two.

People sink loads of money into car ownership… then pretend that using the car is ultimately close to free to use. One day this will seem weird… but for now, you won't talk many people out of that mindset.

Virgin Trains East Coast, as they used to be known, once quoted me nearly twenty-six thousand pounds for a standard-class season ticket from Leeds to London.

Maidstone to London on the high speed line is £5660 yearly standard class for 30 miles as the crow flies. £188 per mile.

Leeds is 170 miles from central London as the crow flies, at £26k that's £153 per mile. Bargain!!!! 😀

I don't know where people are getting their car figures from. 40p/mile is my best and I usually try and bank on spending 50p/mile, so £5k/year. That is throwing everything I can think of in the pot. Oddly enough, neither new(ish) car nor old cars have worked out very much different for me.

Anyway.

Around these here parts public transport just isn't viable.
Trip to work in car - anywhere between 20 minutes (assuming it's midnight) and 40 minutes (5pm), cost £12 a day.
Trip to work on bike - about 45 minutes. Plus showering time. Plus a bit of faff with clobber. So about 1 hour. Cost, I dunno, about 4 slices of toast' worth of calories.
Trip to work on public transport - 2.5 hours. Cost, £10 each way, last time I checked the price, 5 years ago. Oh, and, final helpful factory, nothing goes very near the front door, so a jaunty little walk of a couple of miles to the bus stop. No wait, there's more, there are two busses a day from the nearest bus stop, neither of which are at a helpful time. Utter codswallop.

The problem with insisting that infrastructure must all pay for itself is that 90% of it, doesn't. So it vanishes.

Some of us are amazed at many many folks have access to public transport, huge swathes of the country have bugger all.
.
Think yourselves lucky to have public transport, whatever the price!

Don't worry, within 5-8 years the UK will have road charging, and almost certainly this will be linked to time of use and congestion.
Road users are generally subsidised, pretty much every study agrees.

£8.50.

Or

£3 parking
Anywhere between £2.20 and £6 for a car to do those miles. Most cars are North of 50p/mile these days, certainly most lease or HP or PCP cars, and if it's vaguely nice it can be £1 a mile before you even fuel the thing.

Some difference, but not that much.

4 miles in a car costs you at least £2

I would guess, based on HMRC allowances, driving a typical car would cost £45p/mile.

So a fair bit cheaper than the bus in the OP's case.

For my journey to work, the bus journey - excluding the 15min walk at the other end - takes 8min less than my slowest ever cycle commute*, and 15min more than my fastest ever. I can spend that 15min getting a shower. Maybe the OP's wife's bus journey is better but I can't believe the bus can't be made better.
*Excludes late evening rides after socialising heavily.

I can drive but it works out the same/more than taking public transport as my parking is more expensive and I'm further away, but in total it takes less than half the time of the bus if I come in early, and I can see why people choose this option often.

I speak as a dedicated car owner and driver - use it a lot, love the comfort and convenience, and am fortunate enough not to have to worry about the cost. BUT we have increasing problems with congestion, environmental and health impact of private transport. Electric cars won’t change this they will just create different problems. At some point we will have to take fewer journeys in private transport and more journeys in public transport (or just fewer journeys full stop). To make this happen private transport has to get more expensive, and public transport has to be cheaper and better. This will not be politically popular or easy though.

I have a bus stop 100 metres from my front door..............No waiting in the rain for a bus that never arrives

Are you sure it’s actually a bus stop 😂

Road users are generally subsidised, pretty much every study agrees.

Show us where the subsidies are. Do those subsidies come out of the approximate £40 billion/year paid into the exchequer in fuel tax and vehicle excise licenses, then there’s tax on insurance, etc...

Can I have some sauce with this statement..

Don’t worry, within 5-8 years the UK will have road charging, and almost certainly this will be linked to time of use and congestion.

Because it’s just your opinion.

I’ve just checked the bus route from Chippenham to Westbury, it takes 1hr 45minutes, because it goes via Melksham and Trowbridge, plus I have a, roughly, three-quarters of a mile walk at each end, which with the arthritis in my left knee adds another three quarters of an hour, so two and a half hours. Which means on the shift I’m working at the moment I’d have to leave home at around 4.30am, so I’d have to get up at roughly 3.00am. I’m not entirely sure there are any buses at that time of the morning.
The drive takes about thirty minutes, so I’m leaving at about 6.20am, getting to work at 6.50am, to clock in before 7.00am.
No contest.

countzero - the cost of maintaining roads comes out of local authority budgets.

Every death costs a million or so pounds - IIRC 2000 deaths a year directly attributable to drivers and hundreds more from secondary effects is not thousands.

The value to the public purse of the land used for parking - in cities even the burbs where on road parking is free that land is worth thousnads a year in rental but vcar drivers get it for free.

the costs of enforcing motoring law

Every study looking at this in detail shows car drivers are massivly subsidised out of general taxation.

What about trams?

Are they not subsidised? 😉

Not really PP - they are the most expensive public transport in the city and make a profit. however I assume it will take a billion years to pay back the cost of building the things.

Two bits of analysis of this subsidy here - appear to be quoting sources so you can nitpick
http://ipayroadtax.com/no-such-thing-as-road-tax/when-will-drivers-start-paying-the-full-costs-of-motoring/
https://bristolcycling.org.uk/the-staggering-cost-of-motoring/

however I assume it will take a billion years to pay back the cost of building the things.

Which, as you know, was precisely my point 😉

however I assume it will take a billion years to pay back the cost of building the things.

The Supertram network in South Yorkshire is bidding to DfT to the tune of around £230m to renew the network and make it fit for purpose for another 30 years (to 2054 on current plans)...

The way the costs scale works against public transport as well. If I'm going into Birmingham it's about £7 for a return, in the car it costs about the same in parking and fuel so I'll usually take the train.

If my wife and I are both going in the train cost doubles while the car cost stays the same and it just gets worse the more of us are going.

If we want to have people use public transport rather than their cars that's a tricky equation to balance.

IMO Public transport has to be either significantly cheaper, or quicker than public transport in order for most people to want to use it. And when I say being cheaper, I mean on the day costs as car ownership is a given for weekend usage and biking.

Living in Bristol there's good examples of both. The new metrobus scheme is significantly cheaper than driving into town and paying parking, and is quicker during rush hour. Then it's also only 90 minutes to London on the train at a perfectly acceptable price outside of peak times. Both of these excel by avoiding traffic, whereas local buses just have to sit through exactly the same traffic as you would in a car, but stop 20 times along the way and not likely to be door to door.

But on the other hand due to a knee injury I haven't been cycling to work for the last 6 months and when I looked into taking the local bus it would have taken 40 minutes door to door to go 3 miles, compared to 10 in a car.

I live very close to work so that commute is a non issue but in a few weeks have to, for a week, commute to just outside Edinburgh. A 80minute drive I could get public transport which would get me almost door to door but adds 70 minutes each way assuming I arrive exactly coinciding with the bus/train.

Most cars are North of 50p/mile these days, certainly most lease or HP or PCP cars, and if it’s vaguely nice it can be £1 a mile before you even fuel the thing.

should compare apples with apples. The equivalent of a bus or train journey is a 20 year old berlingo. Cost - £500 to purchase. Lasts 5 years. Running costs £900/year (mot £50, tax £200, insurance £300, £350 for repairs/maintenance). on 10,000 miles that's 20p/mile (fuel is 10p/mile when you're at 45 mpg). Yes, there's a chance it might break down, but hey, the bus/train isn't exactly unfaltering reliable. £1 a mile (assuming 10k/year) would be £9,000 a year in lease costs, or £750 a month, which is brand new S class for 10,000 miles.

Some of the figures in this thread are bonkers