Is it cheaper to drive, fly, or take the train?
Peak train tickets are far more expensive than driving.
Note: This article focuses specifically on travel prices in the UK, (specifically Scotland) so it might be a bit niche for some of you. But hopefully, the principles are still interesting, and you can apply them in other countries.
If you want people to make a climate-friendly choice, you need to make it cheap and easy. If you want more people to take the train, it needs to be cheaper and easier than driving or taking a flight.
Unfortunately, that’s often not the case.
The Scottish Government recently ran a six-month pilot programme to try to fix that. Credit to the Scottish Green Party, who proposed and pushed for it.
The six-month pilot scrapped “peak time” fares, so that people were charged off-peak prices at any time of the day, including rush hour. As we’ll see, this made a massive difference to the cost for morning and evening commuters.
The bad news is that the Scottish Government is now scrapping the pilot. To make the model self-financing, it said a 10% increase in passenger numbers was needed. Journeys increased by just 6.8%.
I wanted to take a look at the impact of this scheme on the economics of commuting. And to also compare the costs of longer journeys across the UK.
Did Scotland’s pilot make train travel cheaper? Some numbers from Edinburgh to Glasgow
Here I’m going to compare the return cost of travelling between two of Scotland’s big cities: Edinburgh and Glasgow. This is a very popular and busy route. There are around 50 miles between them.
I’ve compared the cost of travelling by train — on-peak and off-peak — bus, in a petrol car, and in an electric car which uses different types of charging. I’ll leave some assumptions and sources in the footnote.1
You can see the results in the chart below.
Travelling by train during peak hours — which is the usual morning and evening commute times — is going to set you back £29 for a return. Not cheap to get to work!
Off-peak, it’s around half that price at £15 (which is still not that cheap, but better…).
How does that compare to a petrol car? Well, whether you travel on-peak or off-peak makes all the difference. Driving costs around £17: much less than a peak train, but slightly more expensive than off-peak (although not by much).
Driving an electric car is cheaper. Much cheaper if you’re charging at home. In fact, I estimate that it’s cheaper than getting the bus. If you’re using rapid public chargers, things are more pricey: comparable to petrol and an off-peak train, but still far less than a peak one.2
The Scottish pilot programme of abandoning peak tickets really did change the economics for commuters. I’ll make this clearer in the chart below, which splits the comparison by peak and off-peak trains. With peak tickets, going by train is the most expensive option. This is not a good way to incentivise people to use public transport.
Despite the large drop in costs during the pilot, there was just a 7% increase in journeys. Not tiny, but short of the 10% required, and suggests that there are other factors at play.
One is travel time. The train should be quicker: it’s around 50 minutes compared to 80 minutes in the car. But unless you live right next to the station, you need to factor in time to get there. For me, it’s a 30-minute walk, plus an extra 10 minutes because I’m risk-averse and like to be early. Overall, I think the car is probably a bit quicker.
Cars also have simple “convenience” in their favour. No need to trek in the rain to the station or fight for a seat. Hop in at your house, and hop out at your destination.
To their credit, I find trains more relaxing and productive. I actually wrote half of this article on one. The downside — as I’ll come on to later — is that they’re not always reliable (which offsets some of the relaxation).
One fuzzier factor in behaviour change is inertia. If you’ve always driven to work, you’re probably not going to immediately change your whole commute for a government pilot programme. Maybe a six-month pilot is too short, and that 7% would have gradually increased to 10% with an extra 3 to 6 months of osmosis.
Conclusion: Getting rid of peak tickets does change the economics of taking the train versus driving. But even with off-peak prices, the savings are pretty minor for a petrol car. An electric car, especially when charged at home, is much cheaper. About one-third of the price.
Note that I also looked at the cost of getting a rail season ticket for this route. I expect commuters who travel every day would go for this. It costs £4800 for a year: more expensive than driving a petrol car or an electric one. An EV costs £1200, and petrol costs £41003
Travelling from Edinburgh to London
Every month or two, I travel from Edinburgh to London for work. It’s 400 miles away.
What’s the cheapest way to travel?
This longer route opens up the possibility of flying. There are lots of Edinburgh-to-London flights. Terrible for climate, but a popular choice for many (not me).
Rather than peak versus off-peak prices, I’ve estimated the costs of taking a last-minute trip — where I need to get to an unexpected event tomorrow — and booking in advance, two months ahead.
The results are in the chart below.4
A last-minute flight is extremely expensive: £280 one-way.5 I could take the train for much cheaper: £87. But, again, the car wins on price, especially with an EV.
If I was buying tickets in advance, there was no difference between flying and taking the train. Both are around £50. And, they both beat a petrol car. Driving an EV is still much cheaper if I’m home-charging (but given most EVs don’t have a 400-mile range, I’d probably have to use a public charger on the way). Averaging at-home and public charging costs, I still think that driving an EV would still be cheaper than flying or taking the train.
If you really want to save some cash, then taking the bus is consistently cheapest. I used to do this from Oxford to Edinburgh when I was a poorer postdoc, and I don’t recommend it.
Conclusion: If you’re booking in advance, there is no cost advantage to taking the climate-friendly train compared to the plane. Driving an electric car is much cheaper, especially if you’re travelling last-minute.
Ease and reliability matter too
Cost is important, but not the only factor. Climate-friendly options must also be reliable, and easy to switch to.
The main issue with British rail travel is its unreliability. Over the past year, I’ve experienced more chaotic and unsuccessful trips to London than successful one, with long delays, breakdowns, staff strikes, and being stranded in the middle of the country late at night. Same-day travel to key events has become too risky, forcing me to travel a day in advance.
While I wouldn’t switch to flying for climate reasons, I understand why others might prioritise convenience and reliability.
If we want more people to choose trains, they need to be both affordable and dependable.
Train: prices come from Scotrail and reported ticket costs here: https://www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/transport/edinburgh-glasgow-peak-time-rail-fares-halved-in-bid-to-persuade-motorists-to-switch-to-trains-4355158
Bus: prices come from Megabus. It's around £4.30 one way, and £8.60 return: https://uk.megabus.com/route-guides/glasgow-to-edinburgh
Petrol car: I've assumed a distance of 47 miles (each way), a car efficiency of 36mpg and a petrol cost of £1.43 per litre: https://www.rac.co.uk/route-planner/mileage-calculator/
Electric car: I've assumed an efficiency of 4.5 miles per kWh. That is pretty standard for most mid-range EVs: https://electriccarguide.co.uk/what-is-miles-per-kwh-mi-kwh/
1. Home: 24 pence
2. Public: 66 pence
3. Rapid public: 78 pence
What’s not factored into these prices is the cost of parking a car at the destination.
I've estimated these costs assuming someone travels 5 days per week (Monday to Friday) and 48 weeks a year.
I've used the same assumptions for petrol and EV efficiency and prices as I did in the previous comparison.
Train prices are from Trainline: https://www.thetrainline.com/
For flights, I used Google Flights: https://www.google.com/travel/flights
These prices can vary quite a bit. Another time I looked, the cost was £340 for a next-day flight. But all tickets were in the range of £200 to £350. I struggled to find direct flights that were much cheaper.
What about the cost of buying a car, maintenance, insurance, tax etc?
And once it is more than one person, the car is a no brainer.