Is £5000 a year for a season ticket too much?

[woodenhead]

So the new season ticket prices are out and some more have breached £5000 per annum, is this value?

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-40936050 

 

A very quick fag packet, this is £104 per week if you use it 48 weeks a year.

 

Car parking in London isn't likely to be under £10 per day and at that level it's still £50 per week to park

 

Oxford to London is a 120 mile round trip, three to four of them a week will be a tankful of fuel £50 per week

 

Driving time is going to be 2 hours each way, double the train time.

 

A chap is paying £9000 from Leicester - 204 miles a day 5 hours driving, that's probably at least £100 a week in fuel

 

Doesn't look so bad relative to the car but perhaps I am wrong.

 

I agree trains are expensive, but so are cars.

 

Glad to be a homeworker. 

[Gilbert]

Bristol to Newport and return  c. 80 miles at 15p (fuel only not true cost inc wear & tear, repairs etc etc ) = £12 per day + bridge at £6.70 = £18.70 per day x 5 x approx 47 weeks = nearly £5000 - simples....

Chris

[phil_sutters]

When we retired we moved out of south London to Seaford, East Sussex. A very quick and unscientific search - the first three monthly rents I saw of fairly ordinary 3 bedroom houses in Seaford were - £1,050, £1,400 & £1,150.(Av £1,227) In East Dulwich, roughly comparable houses were £4,000, £2,300 & £2,000 pcm. (Av £2,766) The current annual standard class season ticket from Seaford to Victoria is shown as £4,588. The difference between the average pcms is £1,539 or £18,468 p.a. and the air is fresher!

Very crude calculations but you can see why more families are moving out and paying the fares.

[tamperman36]

At this moment in time that's just under what my wife and myself have to live on per year, thanks to jobseekers. We are both signing on at the moment and only get £200 per fortnight between us and that has to pay for our utility bills, food and transport. We only get housing and council tax paid for us, if we got a job requiring a prepaid season ticket how on earth could we find that sort of money, and people wonder how the gap is getting wider between the rich and the poor.
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[Ron Ron Ron]

Aside from the discussion about whether the fares are too high in the first place, the usual press stories bleating about the cost of season tickets always fails to point out that season ticket holders are getting their travel for almost half price.

[RANGERS]

Aside from the discussion about whether the fares are too high in the first place, the usual press stories bleating about the cost of season tickets always fails to point out that season ticket holders are getting their travel for almost half price.

Not true in every case, in mine it works out at nearer 60% of the daily fare but for that I have to commit to nearly £8000 up front, significantly more than anyone travelling on daily tickets will come near to in a year.

 

The more you buy, the lower the cost, but still a big, big chunk to find every year.

[Clearwater]

Also worth noting that a) increase is based on RPI the increase of which is, in part, due to the devaluation we have seen in sterling b) th government has followed a deliberate policy of asking those who use the network to pay for it. According to Radio 4, the proportion of the network costs met by user charges has increased from 50% to around 65%. That's a deliberate policy.

 

Perhaps also worth noting that despite fairly substantial, 20% in real terms rises over recent years, passenger usage has actually increased. Some might argue that's because people have no choice. You can also argue that the railway is now providing a travel product that people are prepared to pay for...

[Enterprisingwestern]

When we retired we moved out of south London to Seaford, East Sussex. A very quick and unscientific search - the first three monthly rents I saw of fairly ordinary 3 bedroom houses in Seaford were - £1,050, £1,400 & £1,150.(Av £1,227) In East Dulwich, roughly comparable houses were £4,000, £2,300 & £2,000 pcm. (Av £2,766) The current annual standard class season ticket from Seaford to Victoria is shown as £4,588. The difference between the average pcms is £1,539 or £18,468 p.a. and the air is fresher!

Very crude calculations but you can see why more families are moving out and paying the fares.

 

A slightly more accurate calculation.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/10958987/Map-where-cheap-property-prices-meet-cheap-train-lines.html

 

Also, commute o meter factors in the hidden charges as well.

 

Mike.

[Claude_Dreyfus]

Annual season tickets are extremely good value for money if you compare to the equivalent peak-time day return. It does roughly equate to 12 months travel for the price of 10. It is available at weekends and bank holidays, so you can get good usage for it...not to mention the Gold Card also gives you a small discount against other fares not on the route of your ticket.

 

I did commute by car for a number of years, but hated the traffic and hassle. It also cost a fortune in fuel and significantly increased wear and tear on the car. When I started to commute by train, I reduced my milage by over 11,000.

 

My crude calculations for when I used the car (based on a 227 day working year) tell me I spent about £2,230 in fuel on the commute alone; my commute was a 50 mile round trip. I have not bought a weekly car park ticket for many years, but if you are looking at about £20 a week then that's another £1,000 a year. That gives £3,200 or so for half the journey I do now. And these figures don't include increase spend at the MOT!

Edited August 15, 2017 by Claude_Dreyfus

[pete_mcfarlane]

Annual season tickets to London have been over £5k for a while from some stations in the Midlands. It's currently £7k from Grantham, £9k from Newark and £7.5k from Kettering.

 

I can't help thinking the rail industry would be better off if they didn't announce the price increases in the silly season. Every year we get the usual rent-a-quote moans from 'passenger groups', not to  mention the unions (who seem oblivious to the link between fair increases and their members' annual pay rise).

[Rivercider]

Annual season tickets to London have been over £5k for a while from some stations in the Midlands. It's currently £7k from Grantham, £9k from Newark and £7.5k from Kettering.

 

I can't help thinking the rail industry would be better off if they didn't announce the price increases in the silly season. Every year we get the usual rent-a-quote moans from 'passenger groups', not to  mention the unions (who seem oblivious to the link between fair increases and their members' annual pay rise).

Unfortunately the bad publicity about fare increases will get reported again in early January, another low news period, when the rise actually takes effect,

hence to some folk it appears that 'train fares are always going up'

 

cheers

[PhilH]

You get to sit down in a car...

[phil_sutters]

A slightly more accurate calculation.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/10958987/Map-where-cheap-property-prices-meet-cheap-train-lines.html

 

Also, commute o meter factors in the hidden charges as well.

 

Mike.

Please note that those Telegraph prices are two years old. The current Brighton to Victoria annual is £4,184 or London terminals £4538. I chose to look at rentals as so many people are being priced out of buying in the south east. I did a very quick calculation just to give an idea of the difference in rentals, without comparing other costs of living in London or outside its immediate suburbs.

Edited August 16, 2017 by phil_sutters

[DaveyH]

I paid a touch under £11,000 for my current season ticket from Stafford to London.

 

This increase will probably take it over £11,000 when it is next renewed :-(

[Clearwater]

I paid a touch under £11,000 for my current season ticket from Stafford to London.

This increase will probably take it over £11,000 when it is next renewed :-(

But then to Phil"s point, compare property prices.....

[JohnR]

Yes, £5,000 a year IS too much for a season ticket. I dont care if it is for the Main Stand at Chelsea....

[jjb1970]

I think the ultimately it is quite simple. If the cost of a season ticket is less than the net pay differential between a job at home and a job where you commute to then it is good value. If the cost of the season ticket is less than the monthly difference in mortgage or rent payments for your home relative to living in wherever it is you commute to then again it is good value.

[phil_sutters]

But then to Phil"s point, compare property prices.....

Using the same 'first three 3bed house rentals seen' bench-mark -  in Stafford they are typically £650 pcm. So a worse deal than Seaford when the fares are compared.

I am surprised how far people are prepared/forced to commute. We were fortunate to be able to work in London within cycling distance* of home. That was before house prices got silly. We were looking at houses, when we got married in the early 70s, in the £6-£10K range. Those houses now go for £850K - £1M.

*Mind you a colleague used to live in Ealing and work in Southwark and he cycled each way - with the sun in his eyes both ways!

Edited August 15, 2017 by phil_sutters

[Dunsignalling]

If Season Tickets were really "too expensive" the trains in and out of London in the peaks wouldn't be stuffed to the rafters. Just imagine how much worse it would get if the cost were reduced significantly.

 

Using a car only sounds cheaper because most people only think about the fuel, but if you do the sort of distance represented by a £5k+ season, you'll need to factor in an additional service and a set of tyres every year on top. Plus parking costs unless your workplace provides it, plus the congestion charge, plus some extra depreciation on your (by now) high-mileage car when the time comes to trade it in. 

 

Does the train still sound expensive?

 

John

Edited August 15, 2017 by Dunsignalling

[plarailfan]

I was made redundant some years ago and I soon discovered the jobseekers agreement, whereby the claimant has to look for work with a duration, of up to one hours travelling time to and from home.

It's beyond me how the system expects people to find the money up front and for those on variable hours, it's quite possible to end up, sometimes spending an entire days wage on the travel costs. It made me very concerned that I might not be able to properly keep to the agreement I had signed, but thankfully, in the end, I did manage to find employment quite close to my home.

The housing and council tax benefit people don't care if you spend £0 or £200 a week on travel costs, all they look at is your pay slip and work out your benefits from those figures and if you end up having to commute quite a distance to work, you can be left at serious risk, of being abandoned in financial chaos, so, I would like to see something along the lines of the "peoples republic of South Yorkshire" rolled out on a national scale, whereby you can go miles on public transport for hardly any £ Those (1970's) days were great in that respect !       

[Dunsignalling]

I paid a touch under £11,000 for my current season ticket from Stafford to London.

 

This increase will probably take it over £11,000 when it is next renewed :-(

Presumably, your take-home pay in London exceeds what you could make in Stafford by significantly more than that, otherwise it wouldn't be worth the trouble......

[black and decker boy]

Let s not forget that good old BR used high pricing to curb passenger numbers when they got out of hand, then as now due to the instruction of 'Westminster'

[jjb1970]

I'm sure everybody would like cheaper trains, the question is who'd pay for it? Rail travel is already subsidised, and even though I pay over £400/month for my season ticket I think the shift towards increasing the percentage of rail costs paid by users is fair.

[Dunsignalling]

You get to sit down in a car...

If you are coming in from far enough out to be in £5k+ season territory, you probably do on the train as well.

 

What you never get in a car is other people's elbows sticking in your ears later in the journey.

Edited August 15, 2017 by Dunsignalling

[njee20]

We were fortunate to be able to work in London within cycling distance* of home. That was before house prices got silly. We were looking at houses, when we got married in the early 70s, in the £6-£10K range. Those houses now go for £850K - £1M.

*Mind you a colleague used to live in Ealing and work in Southwark and he cycled each way - with the sun in his eyes both ways!

13 miles, an hour each way, very doable at least a couple of times a week.

 

I cycle into London at least twice a week from the Dorking-Leatherhead area (up to 30 miles each way). Combined with a day working from home it means I usually buy day or weekly tickets (which I eek out over two weeks), works out cheaper than a season ticket for me, albeit requires a bit of planning.

 

I object to the cost, but as the above, the pay rise for working in London vastly offsets the extra cost of travel. I'd not want to live in London even if I could afford a comparable house to the one I enjoy down here! I would just stump up for an annual if I stopped cycling in.