Cost of commuting

@fruitbatdancerI knew it would be Kent! It’s bonkers isnt it! And my London supplement doesn’t cover it totally. I can do it for slightly less if I get a slower train, but it means that my total commute is 4 hours.

Live in London, paying London rent. £1.75 bus. Can use unlimited times in 1 hour. So can go most places in London even near Essex and Middlesex. Plus all of the main attractions.

When you add up your commute cost and the extra council tax, I know London has some of the cheapest in the country, is it worth it?

If it is then you must be getting paid amazingly and live in a cheap area.

My head office (central London) is 31 miles away from where I live but my office base is in Surrey, 11 miles away (obviously I don’t qualify for London weighting being that my base isn’t in London!). To get the train to my office base would be £15 per day plus £12 to park. I go to the office 3 days a week, would cost me over £80 a week to use public transport. Costs me about £30 in petrol and I park for free at work so I drive.
If I have to go to head office (1 x per month) my work cover those costs, it’s £55 plus £12 to park.
I’d like to use public transport for environmental reasons but I’m not doing it when I can easily pay almost a third of the costs by driving myself.

In Japan most companies pay their staff's commuting costs.

Train travel is much cheaper there anyway. In the 25 years I've lived here, the price of my original train journey to work has only increased once, by by 20yen (about 11p), and that was due to a rise in the equivalent of VAT. Another increase is on the cards, but we are very lucky when I think of the constant astronomical train fare increases in England.

For me the annoying part was not being able to sit down - I’m fully WFH now but previously I was commuting in 5 days and not only paying £10+ to park (or £6 for unreliable buses) and then £25 for a 20 minute train journey… but the fact you pay all that to stand like a sardine in someone’s armpit on a commuter train that’s ALWAYS already packed from towns further out. And then on the return choosing to wedge yourself in to the train about to leave, or get on the one leaving in 20 minutes in order to get a seat/any semblance of personal space 🫠

No, it definitely isn't that expensive everywhere. I live in Stockholm and an annual travel card to cover all zones without any restrictions is about £900/year. A similar travel card for London is £4656/year. Regular train travel is also more expensive in the UK compared to here. I regularly travel to my family who are 4 hours away by train and the return ticket is never more than abour £60/£70, and that's without any rail card that could make it cheaper.

Here a monthly pass is about £80 per month to get into Sweden, it covers placed within about 100 miles of Stockholm.

wow I thought mine was bad at £37 per day return to Waterloo for a 50 ish min journey. That’s using a network railcard for the way home as it’s off peak. I walk to the station as just over a mile and parking is £10, and I cycle 20 mins on the Santander bikes the other end to save the £5-6 per day tube costs.
will prob get a season ticket now we’re having to go in more. But then as people have said I did negotiate a hike when I got the role in London to cover the travel costs so guess it’s ok. Still seems a lot though

Me, you and @SpringingOn i reckon! We should start a mumsnet commute gang! All being ripped off together!

If you want this to improve, you’ll need to tackle the car lobby who squeal at the merest hint of life being more difficult for drivers.

It adds weight o the wfh argument. 3 days a week makes it doable. If companies want more they find it hard to retain staff.

£12.80 daily commute from London zone 4 - 10 miles into Central London. Higher house prices here but an easy walk to one of two rail stations and free bus commute to school for youngest child. Also the way I figure it is that at least we paying money into a house that we're enjoying (& fingers crossed building equity) rather than the lost money (& time) to commuting.

No to be fair, not peak time. I'm still shocked at the cost to distance ratio though! Very unfair on commuters

Peak time?

Ok thanks.

That's absolutely wild, it doesnt cost me much more than that for a return to London from rural North Wales!

£6,50 to get into central Manchester from my local metro stop £2 on the bus or park for free! Love living up north

Omg...these are crazy prices. You must be on big salaries to justify these commuting costs, or does your employer subsidise?

Dunno but a lot of people pay high tax than they would in England

Flaming hell !

I buy a annual bus ticket, £800 for this year but I think it's going to rocket next year to pay for the ( deservedl ) rise in bus drivers pay.

I'm in Australia, about 45 miles from Melbourne, and a return train ticket is equivalent to about five pounds, full fare. Concession (low income / students etc) is half that price. All people under 18 will travel free everywhere from 1 January. There's also no extra cost to use metro public transport once in the city, such as buses and trams, once you've paid that fiver to get into the city. It's much, much cheaper than driving in and paying parking, and quicker (takes 55 mins to get into the CBD).

Wow, I live the same distance from my nearest city - but in the middle of nowhere, and not in the south east, and pay £20 a day return. I would have expected London to be much more expensive!

Sounds great. How is Scotland paying for this and higher education? Is there massive debt?

Similar 25min journey Linlithgow to Edinburgh is £10.80 return but that’s mainly because Scotland have scrapped peak time rail fares.

I live in Spain and public transport is free for residents - it has been for several years now. It’s meant to encourage people to use their cars less (not sure how well that’s working!)