Cost of commuting

[Asosbabe]

Do other countries pay these commuting costs? We're 25 miles from central London and flexible ticket is over £23 a day. Car park is £12.90 a day , no bus to get to station. Parking restrictions for about a mile around the station and people that park just over a mile away get their cars keyed by pissed off locals. Is this the same in other capital cities?

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

Ok thanks.

Peak time?

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

£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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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 🫠

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.

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.

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.

@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.

Over £100 a day for us too (plus parking which ranges from £4-9 a day depending on the day), each of us go in 1-2 times a week.

If we went off peak it's £25 and trains are just as regular (and often more carriages).

Edit - we also don't like in Kent/Surrey/Sussex. So yes house prices for what we get are much better but there is a balance and that is commute cost, and also time as it's 2.5 hours door to door each way.

I have to go to London for 3 hours on a given day, and I earn £16.50 ph. So basically I earn for 2 hours after travel

In Paris, a full metropolitan area transport card (zone 1 - zone 8) cost less than £90 a month and half is paid by the employer.

I pay £10 a day, 2 or 3 times a week i'm pretty lucky.

I think train prices are ridiculous and they need to extend the oyster to places like Milton keynes etc. but at the same time, isn’t it part of the reason housing is much more expensive in London and the London weighting to offset?

That massive pay rise Angela gave the train drivers has to be paid by someone!

I think we go from the same station. I don't need to pay parking because I walk 30 mins to get there in the morning.

I have to just balance it in my head that we can have a four bed house here but we'd only be able to afford a 1 bed flat near my work.

I pay £8.10 for a return into Manchester city centre. Easily park for free near the station.
Alternative would be 2 buses at £2 per journey, so £8 return but that would take longer.
I moan about how much the price has gone up in the last few years but this thread is putting it in perspective! I live about 10 miles out, houses are reasonably affordable you can easily get a 2 bed terrace for less than £200k.

We went to Florence this year. For a tram ticket from the airport, so right at the edge of the city, into the city centre I think was about €4 (can’t remember exactly but we said how cheap it must be to commute!)

How can the price of trains be the fault of the current government? They have been over priced for years.

Its because they were privatised. Which was John Majors Tory government. Even Thatcher thought privatising the trains was a step too far.