Could Public Transport Give You Something Driving Can't—Your Time Back?

 


Could Public Transport Give You Something Driving Can't—Your Time Back?

Driving might get you there—but on a train, the journey itself can become your time.

When we talk about greener transport, the argument can become rather simplistic.

Cars are portrayed as bad. Buses and trains are portrayed as good. Everyone is told they should stop driving and use public transport instead.

Real life is rather more complicated.

If you live in a village with one bus every two hours, have several bags of shopping, need to transport children to different places or have to reach somewhere poorly served by public transport, the car may be by far the most practical option.

Equally, there are journeys where driving simply makes very little sense.

Perhaps the more useful question is not:

"Should I give up my car?"

It is:

"Are there some journeys where I would actually be better off not driving?"

And one of the most overlooked advantages of public transport is something that has very little to do with emissions.

It can give you some of your time back.

Driving Uses More of Your Time Than the Clock Suggests

Suppose you have a 90-minute journey.

If you drive, those 90 minutes are largely committed to one activity: driving.

You need to watch the road, monitor traffic, judge junctions, react to other vehicles, follow directions and remain alert.

Even if you listen to the radio, a podcast or an audiobook, your primary task remains driving.

Now imagine that the same journey takes 90 minutes by train.

The clock says that both journeys have taken exactly the same amount of time.

But they are not necessarily equivalent.

On the train you might:

  • read a book;

  • answer emails;

  • write a report;

  • plan the following day;

  • listen properly to music;

  • talk to somebody;

  • revise;

  • watch a programme;

  • look through photographs;

  • simply sit quietly;

  • or watch the countryside pass the window.

The destination has not changed.

The journey has.

That is something worth putting into the calculation when deciding how we travel.

What Is an Hour of Your Attention Worth?

We tend to measure journeys almost entirely by minutes.

Google Maps tells us one route takes 58 minutes and another takes 72 minutes, so naturally we assume that the 58-minute journey is better.

But perhaps there should be another measurement:

How much attention does the journey require?

There is a considerable difference between 60 minutes spent concentrating on motorway traffic and 70 minutes sitting on a train reading a newspaper.

This is particularly noticeable on longer journeys.

I have increasingly come to think that travelling time should not simply be regarded as lost time.

If somebody else is doing the driving, the journey can become part of the day rather than an interruption to it.

That changes the economics of transport in an interesting way.

Sometimes the Train Really Does Make Sense

There are journeys where rail travel can be particularly attractive.

Imagine travelling from the Home Counties into central London.

Driving might initially appear convenient because you can leave directly from your house.

But then consider:

  • congestion;

  • parking;

  • parking charges;

  • fuel;

  • stop-start traffic;

  • the possibility of roadworks;

  • and the mental effort of driving in a busy city.

A train may involve walking to the station or driving a short distance to it, but once aboard, much of the remaining journey becomes usable time.

For somebody travelling to a meeting, that could mean reviewing documents beforehand.

For a student, it could mean revision.

For somebody travelling recreationally, it could simply mean beginning the day with a coffee and a book rather than a queue of brake lights.

That is a genuine benefit.

But Public Transport Has to Be Practical

None of this works if we pretend public transport is perfect.

A train that is cancelled is not useful.

A bus that runs once every 90 minutes is unlikely to tempt somebody away from their car.

A journey involving three connections and a 25-minute wait on a cold platform may be technically possible without a car, but that does not make it attractive.

For public transport to compete successfully, several things matter:

Frequency

People are much more likely to use a service when they know another bus or train will arrive relatively soon.

Reliability

A slightly slower reliable journey may be preferable to a theoretically quicker one that regularly goes wrong.

Connections

A good railway service is considerably less useful if the final three miles of the journey are impossible without a taxi.

Cost

A family travelling together may discover that driving is considerably cheaper than buying several rail tickets.

Comfort

Crowding matters.

A train journey during which you can sit, work and relax is very different from 50 minutes standing in an overcrowded carriage.

So this should never become an argument that everybody ought to use public transport regardless of circumstances.

It should be about choosing the right form of transport for the right journey.

The Interesting Possibility of Park-and-Ride

One of the most practical compromises is park-and-ride.

It recognises an important fact:

The car is extremely useful for some parts of a journey and inconvenient for others.

You might drive from your home to the edge of a town or city, park, and complete the congested section by bus or tram.

This can combine the flexibility of the car with the advantages of public transport.

Rather than thinking:

Car OR bus

we can think:

Car AND bus.

That is often a much more realistic approach to greener living.

The same principle works with railway stations.

Driving five miles to a station and then travelling 50 miles by train may be far more sensible than trying to complete the entire journey by either mode alone.

Walking Plus Public Transport Can Work Particularly Well

Public transport becomes even more useful when we stop treating every stage of a journey separately.

Suppose the railway station is a mile away.

That might sound inconvenient.

But walking a mile takes perhaps 15 to 20 minutes for many people.

Suddenly the commute has also provided some daily exercise.

There is no special trip to the gym required.

No fuel has been used for that section.

You have spent some time outdoors.

And at the other end of the journey you may walk again.

A commute that involves ten or fifteen minutes of walking at each end can quietly introduce a substantial amount of physical activity into the week.

Sometimes greener behaviour produces benefits that have nothing directly to do with carbon emissions.

Or Take a Bicycle to the Station

Cycling expands the catchment area of public transport enormously.

A station that feels rather distant on foot may be only ten minutes away by bicycle.

This is where transport planning becomes particularly interesting.

The bicycle does not necessarily replace the train.

The train does not necessarily replace the car.

Different forms of transport can complement one another.

For example:

Home -> bicycle -> station -> train -> walk -> destination

For another journey it might be:

Home -> car -> park-and-ride -> bus -> city centre

And somewhere else:

Home -> walk -> local bus -> shops -> bus home

Greener transport does not have to mean finding one perfect replacement for the private car.

It can mean assembling a more sensible mixture.

Buses Deserve a Slightly Better Reputation

Buses are often the less glamorous part of public transport.

Trains can feel like travel.

Buses sometimes feel like something we use only when we have no alternative.

Yet a good bus service can be enormously useful.

For short journeys into a town centre, a bus removes the need to:

  • find somewhere to park;

  • pay for parking;

  • sit in congestion;

  • or walk back to wherever the car was left.

It can also be particularly valuable for people who cannot drive.

That last point matters.

Public transport is not merely an environmental service.

It is also part of the infrastructure that allows people to participate in society.

Young people, older people, people with some disabilities and people who simply cannot afford a car all depend upon it to varying degrees.

A society designed entirely around car ownership risks excluding people who do not have one.

The Cost Question Is More Complicated Than It Looks

One of the strongest objections to public transport is cost.

And sometimes it is entirely justified.

A family of four can easily find that travelling by train costs substantially more than putting everybody into a car.

But comparisons should include all the costs of driving.

There is obviously fuel.

But there may also be:

  • parking;

  • congestion charges;

  • tolls;

  • additional mileage;

  • servicing;

  • tyres;

  • depreciation;

  • and wear on the vehicle.

The difficulty is that many of these costs are hidden.

We see the £40 train ticket immediately.

We may not notice the fraction of a tyre, service, insurance cost and depreciation associated with another 150-mile car journey.

That does not automatically make the train cheaper.

It simply means the comparison is more complicated than:

train fare versus petrol.

Solo Travel Changes the Calculation

This becomes particularly important when only one person is travelling.

A car carrying four people may be an extremely efficient way of moving those four people.

A large car transporting one person into a congested city centre is a rather different proposition.

This is why blanket statements about transport are rarely helpful.

Occupancy matters.

Distance matters.

The type of vehicle matters.

The availability of public transport matters.

The destination matters.

The time of day matters.

There will be journeys where the car wins easily.

There will be others where it does not.

Public Transport Can Remove the Problem of Parking Entirely

Parking deserves more attention than it normally receives.

We tend to think about the journey to somewhere and forget that the car also has to be stored when it arrives.

For a country walk or rural destination, this may be easy.

For a city centre, hospital, airport or large event, parking can become a major part of the journey.

You may spend ten minutes travelling the final mile and another fifteen minutes finding somewhere to leave the car.

Then you may pay handsomely for the privilege.

At that point, a slightly slower bus or train can begin to look considerably more attractive.

What About Electric Cars?

Electric vehicles improve many aspects of car travel.

They remove tailpipe emissions and can be extremely efficient, especially if charged using low-carbon electricity.

But an electric car does not solve every transport problem.

It can still:

  • become stuck in traffic;

  • require road space;

  • require parking;

  • contribute to tyre wear;

  • require considerable materials to manufacture;

  • and demand your full attention while you drive it.

This is another reason why greener transport should not simply become an argument about replacing every petrol car with an electric car.

Sometimes the better question is whether the journey requires a car at all.

On many journeys, it certainly does.

On others, perhaps not.

There Is Another Benefit: Seeing Where You Live

Walking, cycling and public transport can change our relationship with our surroundings.

Driving encourages us to move through places.

Walking allows us to notice them.

From a bus or train you often see parts of towns, countryside and industrial areas that disappear completely when concentrating on the road.

Walking the final half-mile allows you to notice:

  • shops you had never seen;

  • trees;

  • architecture;

  • rivers;

  • parks;

  • wildlife;

  • footpaths;

  • and sometimes people you know.

That may sound rather romantic, but I think there is something important about it.

Modern transport has become exceptionally good at getting us rapidly from A to B.

Sometimes we forget that there is an entire alphabet in between.

Try a Simple Transport Experiment

Rather than making dramatic declarations about giving up the car, try an experiment.

For one week, look at the journeys you normally make.

Ask of each one:

Could I reasonably make this journey another way?

Not:

Could I theoretically make it another way?

There is an important difference.

Then choose one journey where public transport genuinely looks competitive.

Perhaps it is:

  • a trip into town;

  • a hospital appointment;

  • a day in London;

  • visiting friends;

  • travelling to an exhibition;

  • commuting to work;

  • attending a meeting;

  • or going somewhere where parking is difficult.

Try the alternative.

Then judge it properly.

How long did it take?

How much did it cost?

How stressful was it?

How much walking was involved?

Did you manage to do anything useful during the journey?

Would you do it again?

You might conclude that the car was better.

That is perfectly reasonable.

But you might also discover a journey where you wonder why you have been driving it for years.

Reclaiming the Journey

Perhaps one of the problems with transport discussions is that we focus too heavily on the vehicle.

Petrol.

Diesel.

Electric.

Bus.

Train.

Bicycle.

But transport is really about people and time.

A slightly longer journey that gives you an hour to yourself may, strangely, feel shorter.

I quite like the idea of a journey becoming something other than dead time between two useful parts of the day.

Read something.

Write something.

Have a conversation.

Look out of the window.

Or do absolutely nothing for twenty minutes.

There are not many opportunities left in modern life where doing nothing is socially acceptable.

A train carriage may be one of them.

The Greener Choice Does Not Have to Be a Sacrifice

Going green works best when it improves our lives rather than simply asking us to give things up.

Public transport will not replace every car journey.

Nor should we pretend that it can.

But there are journeys where the bus or train can reduce emissions, avoid congestion, remove parking problems, introduce some walking and potentially save money.

And it may offer one advantage that even the cleanest electric car cannot provide while you are driving it.

Your attention belongs to you again.

So perhaps the next time you plan a longer journey, do not ask only:

"Which route gets me there fastest?"

Ask another question too:

"Which journey gives me the most useful day?"

Because driving might get you there.

But occasionally, public transport can give you something rather more valuable.

It can give you some of your time back.

#GoingGreen #PublicTransport #SustainableTravel #GreenerLiving #SaveMoney #TrainTravel #BusTravel #Walking #Cycling #LowCarbonLiving #SustainableTransport #ClimateAction #EnergySaving #EverydaySustainability #GreenerChoices

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