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?

I think a lot of people on this thread don't understand that everyone wfh has two big consequences for the cost of transport:

first up there are way fewer passengers, but the transport providers are still expected to run the same number of services etc. Dont underestimate how much passenger volumes are still way down compared to pre covid. Fewer passengers mean we dont get to enjoy the same economies of scale so yes we will all pay more.

Secondly, by far the cheapest way to pay for commuter tickets is usually season passes - these reduce the per-day cost a huge amount, but you need to be doing the commute 5 days a week to get the benefit. As soon as you drop to 2 or 3 you end up buying dat tickets which are the most expensive.

Most train lines do tickets where you travel 8 times a month now. The cost was going up by above inflation well before COVID. COVID has meant we just have a worse service. Fewer trains, shorter carriages.

everyone told us to move out of london we can get a bigger house for our money etc etc -and commute in! We didn't, bought in zone 2, a small 2 bed flat - we've 2 kids so its getting tight! but we both pay 0 for the commute cus we can cycle to work and we have no car costs - id rather the small flat than a bigger house tbh ! I cant believe the train costs for commuters - its insane

No
same country as mentioned above I think.
It’s €365 for a ‘county’ travel pass - mine is about 3hrs travel one side to the other so it covers a vast area. Or €1300 ish for an annual ticket that includes unlimited travel in whole country.

I however live in a dead zone for public transport so rarely use it locally. But if I do take the train (about 20mins drive from my house), I can park for FREE at station. Then it’s €9 for a ticket for a 2hr journey to main city if I pre book.

If dh travels for work, his work always pays his commute fees

I would assume not a lot of people are commuting to the office 5 days a week anymore - probably more 1 to 3 days per week.

I'm in Brussels and my previous employer paid for an annual pass and paid train fares for those living outside the city. My dd, who is a student, pays 12 euros a year for Brussels public transport, same for Wallonia buses, but she's moved to Flanders where an annual pass is 200 euros a year. We thought this was expensive! My current employer has a mobility plan of 800 euros a month which as I am entitled to a company car, I can use towards the cost of that, or buy tickets, or buy/rent a bike. As I live within 10km of the office I can also put it towards rent/mortgage. It's bloody marvellous. I don't have the car as they offer purely electric and we live in an apartment and would be reliant on street charging. Too much of a pain.

I pay €39 per month to travel anywhere in Germany on all public transport except for intercity trains. Actual cost of this ticket is €58 but my employer covers part of it. Regional express trains are good, it would only be long distance commuters who'd need to look at other options. The most anyone would pay is €400 per month for unlimited travel on all trains in Germany.

Travel in this country is only going to keep going up while services go down.

But you are right, prices are shocking, I'm just grateful i only work 2days in the office and im lucky enough to have mostly free travel on the train.

Either we pay for it through taxation or directly. We end up paying somehow.

Your username is apt 🤭

How do you get mostly free travel on the train?

As I said upthread - part of t is due to a deliberate decision made by the last government to shift more of the costs of commuter routes on to passengers rather than the tax payer.

May I be the first to volunteer for increased taxes to pay for your daily commute. To the job that you applied for from the house that you bought.

The cost of commuting is just another way of fleecing middle class earners imo….

I am an hour from London - monthly season ticket is £1170 on the day return is £148. It's day light robbery

Wow, where are you based?

I agree with you on principle but look at the chaos it caused a few weeks ago when the bus drivers went on strike , it was a nightmare for me and a lot of my workmates to get to work.
It the trams and trains all go under the same umbrella they could bring Manchester to a stand still.

I often think people miss out commuting costs when they suggest people "move somewhere cheaper", to save money. Often - not always- places are cheap(er) because they are not well connected for public transport. So you'd need to spend either a long time or a lot of money (or likely both) getting to work. The money you save on a mortgage or rent is swallowed up by a hefty rail ticket and station carpark fees. This is possibly worth the risk, if you have a hybrid job...although I think some people took the chance to move further away, and then paid for it when workplaces wanted people to come back to the office more frequently.

When we looked to move out of London, my non negotiable was that it had to be walking distance to a station, so we didnt have to add carpark costs (and fuel) to the commute. Both DH and i commute 5 dats/week most weeks. It's expensive, even with a season ticket. If you get a fixed rate on your mortgage, you can at least forecast how much it will cost you for 2/3/5 years.....rail fares go up every year....

I don't think it's a trade-off anymore. I've lived in London for 12 years, my husband all his life. When it came to buying a property in our mid-30s, we just couldn't afford London (not for the property we needed for 2-3 kids anyway).
We couldn't afford not to work in London either (both our industries are very much based there).

Commute is £55 a day (with a Railcard) + return tube fare in zone 1.

on the London to Cheltenham line. its extortionate & whilst I may get more for buck in terms of garden, house prices, cost of living is the same. Taxis are waaaay more expensive too

Just looked up. Its £75 return peak to London from my local station (about 90 mins). I pay £7 to go 20 miles.

I’m a bit torn.

I do think that train fares in general - and public transport in general - should be cheaper, so to that extent I agree.

But I also agree that London weighting is to assist with the cost of either living in or travelling to London. People (not necessarily you OP) moved far away from their jobs in the pandemic and saved themselves a lot of money doing it. Now they’re all moaning about the cost of and time spent travelling into London (or other cities) - often when they’re now going in 40-60% of the time compared to 80-100 before the pandemic.

Having people back in the office has been really beneficial at my work.

Possibly a stupid question but I’ve been mulling it over since reading this thread on my ridiculously overpriced commute this morning 😀

if companies are nationalised like the trains - are they “allowed” to make profit? What happens to any profit nationalised rail companies make? If British Rail made a come back would ticket prices be reduced? Is that how they manage to make it so cheap in other countries?

How much more would it cost you to live in London and avoid this cost though?

I’m not saying rail fares are justified in being this high, but just for context.

I work for London Transport so free travel is a benefit, thank goodness.

I pay £107 for an off peak return when I have to meet my team in London. It’s a 1.5h train journey.
I recently did a 3h journey on the TGV in France for €40, trains in the UK are ridiculously overpriced and I have lost count of the amount of times my trains have been delayed or cancelled. So the quality of the service doesn’t match the fare!