A direct comparison of rail vs car is like comparing sausages with bananas.
Rail journeys are not door to door, and any rail journey involves shoulder
journeys to & from the train.
There is one way which does come close, and that is to use AA or DfT running
costs figures for the car and add the shoulder journey costs.to the rail trip.
One regular trip I make is Glasgow to Guildford - just a bit short of 1000
miles round trip - cost this at say 30p/mile (tightwad) for a car it comes to
£300, since I cycle the 5 miles or so to and between stations each way stick on
£10 to the rail fares - walk-up anytime the total just under £125, buying in
advance pulls it down substantially to under £60.- not bad as the door-to-door
cost at 1/5th of the car one, and many times safer.
Anna Semelyn and Richard Armitage have done a lot of work on costing personal
travel and Anna' book cutting your car use shows the way that most people can
save a few thousand pounds per year through not owning a car and buying their
travel effectively.
Dave Holladay
Glasgow
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