Re: list of fair increases

In article <4398371f$0$63069$ed2e19e4@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Martin Underwood <news@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>Any fare rise which is well above the rate of inflation is unfair. It makes
>my blood boil that passengers are being asked to stump up yet more money,
>when train fares are already very expensive (by a factor of several 100%
>IMHO) in relation to bus/coach fares and to the cost of fuel for car
>journeys, to fund track and rolling-stock investment as well as just to pay
>for day-to-day running costs.

I'm afraid that you've just fallen foul of Spencer's Dictum, which
states that "he who refuses to do mathematics is doomed to talk
nonsense".

You state: "train fares are already very expensive (by a factor of several 100%
>IMHO) in relation to bus/coach fares and to the cost of fuel for car
>journeys" (I like the IMHO. In this context it's amusing, as it suggests
that the costs are influenced by your opinion).

Let's look at the numbers.

Aberystwyth to Newcastle, saver return ticket is (IIRC) 97 UKP. Road mileage
is about 280 each way, so 560 for the round trip. Let's consider a xar
which will do 35 mpg on a run (going gently on the motorway a diesel would
do better, but it'd do worse on the windy bits if it's being at all
pushed). Let's take fuel at 97.8p/litre (not far off for prices here
at the moment). I make that about 70 UKP for fuel cost. This is less
than the train ticket, but a factor of several 100%? No.

Turn it around. Let's consider a train fare which is 200% of the fuel cost.
That implies a fuel cost of about 54 UKP. That implies getting about 46 mpg
overall, which is going to be pushing it unless you've got an exceptionally
frugal car (remember, you've got the winding roads through Wales and the
A66 over Stainmore to factor in).

Real comparison: Saver return fare vs. Range Rover classic, 3.9L V8 on LPG
(43p/litre). That comes in at about 65 UKP for fuel.

Of course, as Ian Batten pointed out in this group a while back, no-one
but an idiot costs car use on fuel alone. Add in oil, tyres and servicing
and it's a much closer thing. Company mileage costings (how much they'll
pay you per mile of business use of your own car) generally represent a
more realistic estimate of total financial impact of car-miles. We pay
25p/mile (cars with engines larger than 1 litre, more than 4000 business miles)
and I doubt if we're abnormally generous. That would equate to 140 UKP
for the round trip - 144% of the cost of a saver return..

So - /not/ "several 100%" by any means.

HTH.

--
Andy Breen ~ Not speaking on behalf of the University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Feng Shui: an ancient oriental art for extracting
money from the gullible (Martin Sinclair)
.

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