"David Spiro" wrote in message
...
Just saw a news piece last night here in the states on the impact of
rising
gas prices over in London. While they touched on many things, the two
things
that stuck out for me were the increase in fuel efficient car usage, and
the
increase in public transport use. Are you folks who use the system daily
there noticing any true increase in passengers, and has the congestion
charge had any real effect on public transport use as well?

Certainly the high fuel prices in Britain (and to a lesser extent in the
rest of Europe) have been the reason for the smaller proportion of cars with
automatic transmission (less fuel-efficient) and the higher proportion of
cars with diesel engines (more fuel-efficient) than in the US.

Approximately 3/4 of the price of a gallon of fuel in the UK is tax - either
fuel tax or VAT - which makes fuel one of the most heavily-taxed
commodities. To put that in context, the government take the cost of the
fuel (including distribution) and add three times that price in tax - 300%
tax is scary!

I think use of cars versus public transport depends a lot on the
convenience. If I was going to London, where there are frequent services to
London and within London, and I wasn't taking a lot of luggage, I'd always
use the train. But that's largely due to the greater convenience of the
train/underground in a busy city and the freedom from having to worry about
where to park. The only time I've driven in central London recently is when
I had to get from the north west (Oxford) to the south east (Lewisham) on
business a couple of years ago. I gambled on it being quicker to go straight
through the middle (M40/A40 - Marylebone Road - City Road - Barbican - Tower
Bridge - Old Kent Road) than round the M25 or the North Circular. It took
forever, especially around Barbican and Old Kent Road, though I'd be
interested to wonder whether the less direct ring roads would have saved me
much time. Unfortunately in that case I was delivering a server so I had to
go by car.

But away from a busy city, public transport takes a lot longer than a car
because it doesn't cover your whole journey, door-to-door, and it doesn't go
exactly when you want so you have to modify when you travel to fit in with
what's available. And you can't take a carful of luggage etc on the
bus/train. And despite economies of scale, public transport (especially
trains) works out much more expensive than a car. Of course it depends how
you compare the costs, but if you assume that you need a car for some
journeys, then you will already have paid for the road fund licence and the
insurance up-front - these are fixed costs that don't depend on how much you
use the car so it's not fair to factor them into the running costs. Thus you
compare the train fare against the petrol and servicing costs. My car costs
about 7.5 pence per mile in fuel. Servicing is about £300 per 12,000 miles
which adds another 2.5 pence per mile. If only train fares were as low as 10
pence per mile! Even if insurance and tax are included, that's another £500
averaged over maybe 15,000 miles or 3 pence per mile.

I run a business which involves me taking my PC repair tools and laptop to
customers all around my region and may involve me taking/collecting PCs. No
way would that be feasible on a train/bus or on my bike. However if a
customer lives within walking distance of me and it's a nice day, I may well
walk.

So you choose your transport according to your needs and according to what's
available. Price is less of a factor in deciding how to travel - it just
bumps up the price and becomes a grudge purchase.