To think people don't use public transport as its so unreliable

Totally. I could get the bus to work but the times I did it was late or didn't turn up. Plus for ages you couldn't tap on you had to get a separate pre-paid card. So annoying. I am going to try it again over the summer in the hope it's improved.

I still use public transport for long journeys or to get in to our city centre, simply because I hate driving. Buses to our city are good frequent and reliable. However getting the train to see friends and family in different towns has been quite challenging! I've noticed a real decline in the last year or 18 months. Trains are frequently cancelled which means everyone squeezes in to the next one. I often have to stand for a two hour journey, squashed up against other people, feeling quite claustrophobic. The lines and overhead wires are in a bad state so sometimes the train gets stranded for ages. Once I was meant to get back at 9pm but got back at 3am because of problems with the overhead wires.
Sometimes several trains in a row are cancelled and then I have to take some convoluted route home.
Adding to this, the cost of trains are very high in this country especially when I compare them to other countries - which have a much better rail service!
It needs huge investment!

YANBU. I live in London where the public transport is expensive but good. And unless I am going into the city or west end, it still works out cheaper and faster to drive.

However my borough has finally recognised that the only way to force people onto a more expensive, slower and less reliable form of transport is to literally block off the roads, so they are gradually doing that. Soon it will be impossible to drive at all.

Yesterday I went to MIL's, on the very edge of London, for a family birthday. It's 40 miles each way, mostly on rural roads and takes an hour to 90 minutes, depending on traffic. Petrol cost around £12-15.

To do that journey by public transport I'd have had to get:

bus to the station, only half-hourly so I'd have had to get the 10.45 bus for the 11.21 train

an hour on the train, £24 return

bus to her house, min 30 minutes

Return journey would involve a taxi from the station, £7 approx, as the buses here stop at 5.15.

I don't know how much the bus would cost, but I wouldn't have to pay because I have an old fart's bus pass.

It would take more than double the time, and cost twice as much. That's why I don't use public transport, other than for daytime journeys into town, where the cost of parking outweighs the extra time involved.

Buses to my village don't always stop because they are often full, that means an hour till the next one. If you have a job or college to get to that's just too unreliable. We haven't been connected to the national cycle network just down the road so it would be a treacherous cycle on a fast 60mph winding road used by huge lorries to get to the nearest town with more buses and trains. I imagine that's echoed all over the country. We used to have a station here but it was closed by the Beeching cute. Now we have a dual carriageway. In cities the buses seem to be a much better option than a car but in rural area you need a car.

Sorry for a bit of London-centricity!

Daily, it's much better VFM to use a contactless card, then the daily Oyster cap applies £8.10. Remember that with a Travelcard, you are buying all travel within zones 1-6. If you are just coming in by car, parking and not using public transport, then that might make sense.

But if you need to travel once in London, then contactless PAYG is probably best. Remember that u11s are totally free on London Transport (not trains though) and then reduced child prices.

I thought one-day travel cards had been phased out, but looking online suggests they're still clinging on, despite being more expensive than other options. Travelcard price is roughly 3x typical tube journeys (or fewer if longer ones across many zones). They used to be available as part of your train ticket - is that no longer done?

London is the plave where public transport mainly works.

Buses go on diversion because of roadworks, crashes, other incidents. And yes, I think there could be better info on the tannoy about the diversion route. The random waits are to regularise the service. It's annoying when yours sits down, but it means that the bus is running ahead of schedule, and short waits are better rather than having it catch up with the bus in front, and then doubled gap to the one after.

This for sure

Bus into town from my house - 45 - 60 minutes

Car - 8 minutes

I never use it. We have no buses to the nearest city,10 miles away,and the last bus to our village leaves a nearby town at 2.11pm. So if you worked in the city,you'd have to leave work at lunchtime to catch a bus to the nearest town,to be able to catch the last bus home at 2.11pm. We all suspect that this is do that the bus company can pull the service,as 'there is no demand'.

Both my DDs knew the importance of learning to drive. DD1 commuted by train to uni,20 miles away,and trains were constantly cancelled or breaking down,leaving her stranded. I can't count the number of times that one of us has had to go and rescue her.
The last train between two major cities on a Saturday night is 9.30pm. If you fancied a night at the theatre,travelling by train would be useless as you'd have to leave before the end of the performance.

I think a lot of public transport is run for the convenience of the company,rather than the users.

Also inconvenient- ds school is 3 miles away in another village - buses are infrequent and there is no direct route so he could get 2 buses and have to leave home super early due to bus times to spend an hour travelling to school which would also be expensive, or walk for an hour (crossing a busy dual carriageway) or it is 9 minutes to drive him - I drop him a short walk from school.

.

Here buses are infrequent, they don't run in Sunday and stop early.

I do use trains to go to Liverpool and Manchester but they are not much cheaper than driving, one is actually more expensive and I still need to drive.to the station and pay to park, but they are less hassle than driving albeit only hourly and they are quicker. There have been cancellations which have been inconvenient especially when the next train is an hour later - you can't rely on the late evening trains which are frequently cancelled and would leave you stranded with no alternative other than an expensive (£60-90) taxi ride.

@DdraigGoch Avanti here aren't "good" it's just the alternatives are even worse!

Lack of convenient routing is my issue. My work is a 15 minute drive, cost approx £1 each way in fuel. By bus it's 1 hour 47 minutes and costs £4 each way. This is due to the hub and spoke nature of rural bus routes, they all go into the city.

This. When I lived in Edinburgh we did not own as car as there was no need to.

Where we live now a car is essential.

You don’t need to penalize motorists to get people using public transport. You just need really good public transport.

I use the bus and train to commute every day, my husband drives his commute. All in, I’d say we are equal on unexpected delays interfering with our journeys. I just think it feels worse on public transport due to the lack of control you feel when it’s happening, therefore feels more stressful. My husband can be in a 15 minute traffic jam or face scheduled road works for a few weeks and tends not to think anything of it.

I like getting a refund with my delays though!

I stopped using the train for years as it was constant bus replacement due to cancellations.

Ir seems to be better now and I have started using it again but so expensive that it’s similar to parking costs. So for two adults, driving is cheaper.

I live in London and our area is criss crossed with bus choices. I just look on the tfl app to work out what is coming next. I can also walk to 2 different tube stations within 15 minutes. We've got a car but did less than 400 miles last year and its currently got cobwebs hanging off the wing mirror. This really is a story of whether you live in a highly urbanised environment with large populations to warrant lots of transport choice. As I age I prefer to have public transport choice as I might not always be able to drive and don't want to feel isolated.

We do have reasonably good trains here though, but still extortionately priced compared with other countries.

DH could only get a car parking permit for work if he could prove public transport was not feasible. He would have needed to leave home for work the next day before he could have got home. He has a car park pass.
I looked into it for me - it would take 3 times as long, and cost 5 times the amount.

No way either of us could commute to our current jobs without a car.

And that's assuming everything ran onto me, and was never cancelled.

It's also expensive. When I first lived here 18 years ago there were buses - at stupid times though, so there was no way you could go into town and get back again in a few hours. It cost like £7 one way or something to go four miles.

Agree.
I used to use the train quite a lot but in the last 10 years it’s got much more expensive and much less reliable so now I either drive or don’t travel.
road travel is just as unreliable though-always have to leave much more time than should be needed in case of traffic etc.

All of the reasons! We were looking at taking the train to see The Harry Potter experience in December and train tickets for 5 of us (2 adults 3 children) nearly £300! How can rail companies justify these extortionate prices when the service is so poor! Trains frequently get cancelled, rail replacement in leaky (very old) buses usually cramped! Or train is late and even if not late not enough carriages so standing room only!
Buses are very slow and unreliable and frequently just do not turn up! It is no wonder that we all use our cars when we can😳
I get mad at the Government and councils trying to force us on to public transport WITHOUT improving it! If I could travel reliably from A to B comfortably and at a fair price then I absolutely would use public transport.

But I can’t use it for work if I’m going to be late more days than I’m on time. Or to get home to collect the DSs from the childminder.

In my case three trains have to be one time (and it takes an hour and a half if they all are, longer if I walk to the local station) or I can drive in 40 minutes door to door. It’s 20 miles.

I use public transport every day and it is fab in London. The tubes on the lines I use are rarely cancelled and buses are plentiful. It should be like this everywhere. I would much rather get public transport than drive in London.

There are definitely issues with public transport, like unreliable train connections etc but for me the pros massively outweigh the cons, like traffic jams - and rail cards help keep costs down

If your train is late, then reclaim the cost of your ticket. You can travel for free if you are held up that long.