Total cost to society per commute
Coburg to Melbourne CBD
Source: Deloitte Access Economics
The Age today reports that Deloitte Access Economics research…
“modelled a journey from Coburg to Flinders Street Station via car, train and bicycle and found – after taking traffic congestion, accidents and other impacts into consideration – that the car trip costs society nearly twice as much as the train trip, and 19 times more than riding a bike.”
Not much more to be said really… the conclusions are obvious.
Whitehorse Active Transport Action Group Inc. 
This article should also have included e-bikes as part of the solution to reducing congestion. E-bikes allow older folk to ride longer distances, thus broadening the base of those riding, and they are particularly good for those who live in hilly suburbs who previously may not have considered a bike as a commute option. They also allow one to arrive at one’s destination more refreshed thanks to less effort peddling, as well as a stronger breeze thanks to the ease of riding a bit faster. Over half the adult bikes sold in Germany and The Netherlands are now e-bikes, yet we in Australia seem reluctant to embrace them.
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Yes it would be interesting to see the relative costs for an e-bike – maybe even for e-scooters which are major transport mode now in China and a coming mode in Europe.
A comparison for a shorter commute – say from Fitzroy – would also be good to see because walking could also be included as a viable option.
However, despite these interesting possible areas to study, the graphic certainly makes the point that cars are certainly NOT the solution!
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I made a presentation to some members of our Probus Group, regarding getting to the airport by the different means:
– drive and park for a week
– Taxi
– lean on a friend
– Skybus
– or true Public Transport (ie 901 and 902 buses) which we have done a quite a few times (and I know others use it as well)
For each mode, i provided costs, time, and carbon emissions.
The intent was to get them to look outside the box, because MOST people use car and park.
And when you point out to them the marginal cost of their time eg a car trip play parking costs well over a $100, might take 1 hr DOOR to DOOR from Box Hill compared $4 for public transport for seniors and takes 2hrs 15min approx (that’s equivalent to around $100 value to travel time that a person is valuing their time.
(I didn’t mention bikes as this would have turned them off straight away!)
cheers
Peter
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Peter, A higher value of time makes sense for airport trips, cos if you miss your flight it costs the family a lot of money 🙂
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