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Comment by hexbin010 | Hacker News Reader

When comparing to the UK you have to also factor in how absurdly expensive it is. Eg a monthly ticket to the nearest city ~25km away is 292 EUR (nowhere near London. A city with not very high wages either). And the train is just 2.5 carriages and full every day.

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A typical season ticket into London is under 20p a mile. Outside of London it’s far more expensive (35p a mile is common), because the railway has not had the investment London has over decades. Platform lengthening (of possible) is not cheap, requires buying new land in crowded towns and cities. Modern train stock isn’t cheap either

25km each way is 680 miles a month.

Most people will commute ~19 days a month, given vacations and sickness.

From my example, that's ~794 miles (corrected) a month, £255, £0.32/mile. Not as expensive as some other routes but still can be as as high as 12% of your take-home wage given the low salaries in that city.

Moving onto London... /under/ 20p a mile? Which route is that??

Just some random examples I picked:

Alton to Waterloo: £529, 1786 miles, £0.29/mile.

Guildford to Waterloo: £453/mo - 1140 miles a month, £0.39/mile.

Gravesend to London Bridge: £436/mo, 836 miles a month, £0.52/mile.

Brentwood to Liverpool St: £336/mo, 706 miles a month, £0.47/mile.

St Albans to Thameslink: £440/mo, 756 miles a month, £0.58/mile.

(Mileages from https://www.scotrail.co.uk/carbon-calculator )

Most people do 5 days a week, 46 weeks a year - with 6 weeks holidays.

Alton to Waterloo is £5520 a year, 50 miles each way or 23,000 miles a year, 24p per mile.

Cool so one single example that doesn't support your claim and zero interest in discussing it on a wider basis.

Southampton 20p/mile

Brighton 17p/mile

Battle 22p/mile

Compare to say wilmslow to Manchester (33p/mile), or northwich (29p/mile)

Compared to to people doing one off journeys. London-Southampton 77p/mile, Brighton 46p/mile, Battle 53p/mile

Brighton is £559/mo for the Thameslink only ticket (the cheaper one) and 50.5 miles to London Bridge. Even being generous saying 22 days a month, that's 25p/mile.

Just give up.

I've proved your "A typical season ticket into London is under 20p a mile" claim wrong multiple times.

Southampton to Waterloo is just about the exception at ~19p/mile if you assume 22 days per month which I think is exceptional.

Annual tickets are 40 weeks meaning 5.75 trips per weekly ticket (230 a year). Newbury works out 21p a mile, Ipswich 23p a mile, Cambridge 22p/mile, so yes prices have crept up just above 20p/mile in the last year or two.

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