Togetherness can cut pain of commuting

 

Sharing your car can ease the daily tedium of travelling - and save you thousands as petrol prices soar.

Tom McDonald and Rob Scott

Your turn: Tom McDonald, left, and Rob Scott alternate their cars for the commute

Getting from A to B is a crucial part of life. From the school run and the office commute to trips to the shops and leisure journeys, we are always on the move.

Official figures say the average person travels 6,775 miles a year in Britain, making 973 trips on all forms of transport, including on foot.

But this mobile lifestyle comes at an increasing cost, with higher fares and vehicle ownership costs adding to the pressure on stretched household budgets.

Financial Mail highlights the best ways to save, however you plan to travel.

On the roads

Rising fuel prices have hogged the headlines over the past year, but motorists have seen other expenses such as insurance and the cost of spares climbing too.

A driver with a typical family car such as a Ford Focus now pays 67p a mile to cover 10,000 miles a year, according to the AA - up from 56p a mile in 2006.

These rising costs have made drivers more imaginative as they find ways to contain the expense. The AA says its members are driving less - making an average three visits a month to filling stations in April compared with 33.4 per month last August. Denis Bass, 66, has changed his driving habits. He drives a Land Rover Discovery while his wife Sharon, 59, has a VW Golf.

Denis, from Seaford, East Sussex, says: 'I monitor costs carefully and know that together we've averaged about £3,200 a year on fuel over the past few years. My aim is to keep our spending the same, even though the fuel costs more.'

Denis retired from managing the workshop at a motor dealer last year and works part time delivering new vehicles to their buyers. He is walking more on shorter journeys and tries to share with Sharon, who works at Glyndebourne opera house, near Lewes.

Denis says: 'If the timings make sense, then I will take a ride with Sharon to work rather than going in my own car.'

Motorists are already taking advantage of supermarket promotions and trying to pick up the best deals. Barclaycard, for example, is giving new customers 10% cashback on fuel spending between now and the end of August.

Denis and Sharon Bass

Cruise control: Denis Bass travels to work with wife Sharon whenever he can

Denis and Sharon both have an AA credit card. They take advantage of a deal that pays a four per cent cashback to members when they use the card to pay for fuel and other motoring costs. They saved £200 on their car insurance last year.

A good way to save money is carpooling, where anyone doing a regular journey can find a passenger to help share the costs.

Sometimes sharers take it in turns to use their cars. In other partnerships, one person drives and their passengers pay an agreed sum towards the costs. Liftshare is one of the biggest car-pooling schemes, with more than 400,000 drivers and passengers registered.

It helps employers set up and run car-pooling schemes for their staff and more than 600 firms, universities and local authorities have signed up. Liftshare also runs community carpooling groups through liftshare.com and a car-share scheme for music festival fans called festivalbudi.com.

Liftshare spokeswoman Cecilia Bromley-Martin says: 'Whenever petrol prices rise, we see a big increase in people signing up.'

Rob Scott, 28, is saving at least £130 a month by car pooling. He commutes from Withington, south Manchester, into the centre of Liverpool, where he works for a business matching young people to overseas work placements.

Rob shares with Tom McDonald, also 28, and they drive their own cars on alternate days. And three days a week they give a lift to Maisie Platts, 26. She pays £4 a day as a contribution to petrol on the 76-mile round trip. Rob says: 'We all live within five minutes of each other, so pick-ups are easy.'

The three got in touch through liftshare.com and have been sharing since last autumn. Rob says: 'For me, 99% of the motivation is money saving. I have tried the train, but it is so much cheaper with three in a car.'

As well as saving about £30 a week in fuel costs, Rob is also halving the mileage and wear and tear on his Skoda Fabia.

There can be other perks for those who share cars. Chiltern Railways offers free parking at its stations and there are 12 sections of road around Britain with high-occupancy lanes reserved for cars with two or more occupants.

Those interested in more ad hoc lift sharing can post details of their journey online through websites such as rideshare.co.uk and blablacar.com. Again, these try to link drivers who have seats to fill with would-be passengers.

But those travelling to or from smaller towns can struggle to find any lifts being offered.

On the rails

The battle to save is intensifying on the railways. Fares rose on average by 6.2% in January - and that is just the start.

Under a new Government formula, from next January regulated fares such as savers and season tickets will rise by inflation plus three percentage points a year.

Shopping online for rail tickets makes it easier to buy ahead, with options including the industry's own website nationalrail.co.uk and thetrainline.com.

Each train company also sells direct, which is sometimes the only way to get sale tickets or special promotions. But there is fresh competition for sales, for example from redspottedhanky.com, which was launched last year.

This rail ticketing agency levies no booking fee and runs a loyalty scheme, allowing customers to earn 1p credit for each pound they spend. This can be put towards future ticket purchases or given to the Railway Children charity. A partnership with Tesco allows shoppers to swap their Clubcard points for train tickets.

Like other rail ticket sellers, the site earns a commission from the train operator for each ticket it sells. James Bain, one of the founding directors at Redspottedhanky, says: 'We don't think we need to charge a booking fee to make our money.'

Whichever way you buy, booking early is key. Each train has a quota of 'advance' fares. These tie you to a set time and train, but can be a fraction of the normal flexible price. For example, booking for the 13:06 departure from Edinburgh to Bristol three weeks ahead costs £19 while buying a flexible ticket, also three weeks ahead, for the same journey costs £53.20.

It can also pay to check the price of two singles instead of a return. And investigate taking a slower train, which can be cheaper but is not always the first fare offered.

Consumer group Passenger Focus advises travellers to check for fares with competing rail companies over the same route. For example, London Midland and Virgin both run services between Birmingham and London. The Virgin trains are faster, but generally more expensive.

Railcards for the disabled, for those aged under 26 or over 60, or for those travelling with at least one child can also help trim the costs of fares. Passenger Focus has a detailed free guide on getting the best deals called Just the Ticket, available at passengerfocus.org.uk.

On the buses

If price is everything, do not overlook Britain's coach network. A cheaper ticket can make up for the fact that a coach will usually be slower than a train over most of the longer intercity journeys.

For someone booking two weeks ahead for a journey from Wolverhampton to Preston leaving at 8.30pm this Friday, the best fare is £21.60 with National Express coaches compared with the cheapest train fare of £34.

Apart from clicking on nationalexpress.com, other operators worth checking include megabus.com, which has routes nationally and offers off-peak fares from £1, and greyhounduk.com, which runs buses between Hampshire and Dorset and London and also has a London-Scotland service.

On your bike

Only 3% of us cycle to work, according to National Statistics data published this month. But this is based on a survey in 2009 and there is anecdotal evidence from many cities of an increase in the number of regular cyclists on the road as other travel costs rise.

Once you own a bicycle, the potential savings are significant. Someone who cycles to work in relatively flat York, for example, could save £15 a week against the weekly cost of a local bus ticket.

In some cases you can even be paid for using your bike. If you use a privately owned bike to travel on business, such as visiting customers, an employer is allowed to pay 20p a mile free of any tax and National Insurance.

Karl Roche

Streets ahead: Karl Roche got his bike for less than half the High Street price due to Cyclescheme

IT worker Karl Roche, 40, splits his week between an office at his home in Sutton, south-west London, and the offices of technology giant IBM, 12 miles away in central London.

Karl, who cycles in two days most weeks, says: 'I can combine exercise with the commute and get to work feeling alive and awake.' He also saves the £15 cost of the daily train fare - about £3,600 a year.

A sympathetic employer is a huge boost for cyclists. IBM, for example, provides secure cycle storage - and showers. Karl, who is married to Ping, 35, and has daughters, Phoebe, 6, and Zoe, 3, says: 'You do need somewhere to get changed and to keep clothes, so we're lucky to have the right facilities.'

The Government's cycle to work scheme allows employers to provide a tax-free bike to staff. In most cases, employees pay for the bike by voluntarily reducing their salary by a set amount each month to cover the cost of the cycle and any accessories.

This means employees pay no income tax and no NI on the costs while the employer saves NI. Most employers can also reclaim VAT on the cost of the bike.

Savings depend on exactly how a company implements the scheme and on your income tax rate. You can typically save between 42% and 52% on the retail price of a bike, says Cyclescheme, which helps employers provide workplace cycles.

Karl took delivery of a new Giant Defy road bike, financed through cyclescheme.co.uk, earlier this year. This cuts his take-home pay by just over £45 a month for a year (a total of £540), but gives him a bike and accessories that would cost almost £1,100 in the shops.