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Cross country, UK public transport is a shambles. As far as I can tell, it excels at two use cases - infrequent journeys and/or too poor to own a car, or so ric
by stegosaurus 11y ago
Cross country, UK public transport is a shambles. As far as I can tell, it excels at two use cases - infrequent journeys and/or too poor to own a car, or so rich that the cost is irrelevant.
A cross country train here essentially has to be booked in advance. Random example - London to York, ~200mi journey, £110 anytime single ticket one way.
And that's for a single person. Add in a partner, friends or children and watch the fares explode into the stratosphere.
This nonsense doesn't happen on the London Underground, or on a local bus.
Basically, public transport turns life into a game of 'what will I do in x weeks time?'... the only people that really buy tickets for 'now' are business travellers and the elite.
It bothers me that the only reason I really want a car is for the journeys that are actually the most trivial to solve. A train ticket from A to B should never cost more than fuel and depn that a car would use from A to B. Yet it does. eh.
(If you book weeks in advance it's sort of OK. But that's not life. Not a life I want to live, anyway.)
Heh. Just had a look at travelling to my hometown for a weekend. A few days out. Few hundred miles. 160GBP return. To me that's basically a troll fare. It's basically matching the fuel and depreciation on a new van, except one person can make the journey with a suitcase or two. Ace.
- bobbles 11y agoWhen I was travelling with my SO we ended up in Manchester and needed to get to London. I can't remember the exact fare but it was something like 150 pounds each for the one way train ride ($580 AUD total) vs a similar length trip in Australia which would have been about $110 AUD total. A complete rip-off IMO.
- stegosaurus 11y agoIt really is just hilariously broken. I do not understand it. Many people seem to hanker for re-nationalisation of the railways. I just want to see sensible business methods really. If you price railway tickets reasonably you have a potential market of millions. Perhaps even 10M+. If you price them as toys for the rich, everyone drives cars. What is going on here? Bonkers. I take budget coaches because they let me book at short notice, often at 1/5th the price or less.