Just saw a news piece last night here in the states on the impact of rising
gas prices over in London. While they touched on many things, the two things
that stuck out for me were the increase in fuel efficient car usage, and the
increase in public transport use. Are you folks who use the system daily
there noticing any true increase in passengers, and has the congestion
charge had any real effect on public transport use as well?

--
David Spiro
Liver Transplant Recipient - 8/1/97
RECYCLE YOURSELF! - BE AN ORGAN DONOR
"We spend all our time searching for security, and then we hate it when we
get it."
--John Steinbeck

"David Spiro" wrote in message
...
Just saw a news piece last night here in the states on the impact of
rising
gas prices over in London. While they touched on many things, the two
things
that stuck out for me were the increase in fuel efficient car usage, and
the
increase in public transport use. Are you folks who use the system daily
there noticing any true increase in passengers, and has the congestion
charge had any real effect on public transport use as well?

Certainly the high fuel prices in Britain (and to a lesser extent in the
rest of Europe) have been the reason for the smaller proportion of cars with
automatic transmission (less fuel-efficient) and the higher proportion of
cars with diesel engines (more fuel-efficient) than in the US.

Approximately 3/4 of the price of a gallon of fuel in the UK is tax - either
fuel tax or VAT - which makes fuel one of the most heavily-taxed
commodities. To put that in context, the government take the cost of the
fuel (including distribution) and add three times that price in tax - 300%
tax is scary!

I think use of cars versus public transport depends a lot on the
convenience. If I was going to London, where there are frequent services to
London and within London, and I wasn't taking a lot of luggage, I'd always
use the train. But that's largely due to the greater convenience of the
train/underground in a busy city and the freedom from having to worry about
where to park. The only time I've driven in central London recently is when
I had to get from the north west (Oxford) to the south east (Lewisham) on
business a couple of years ago. I gambled on it being quicker to go straight
through the middle (M40/A40 - Marylebone Road - City Road - Barbican - Tower
Bridge - Old Kent Road) than round the M25 or the North Circular. It took
forever, especially around Barbican and Old Kent Road, though I'd be
interested to wonder whether the less direct ring roads would have saved me
much time. Unfortunately in that case I was delivering a server so I had to
go by car.

But away from a busy city, public transport takes a lot longer than a car
because it doesn't cover your whole journey, door-to-door, and it doesn't go
exactly when you want so you have to modify when you travel to fit in with
what's available. And you can't take a carful of luggage etc on the
bus/train. And despite economies of scale, public transport (especially
trains) works out much more expensive than a car. Of course it depends how
you compare the costs, but if you assume that you need a car for some
journeys, then you will already have paid for the road fund licence and the
insurance up-front - these are fixed costs that don't depend on how much you
use the car so it's not fair to factor them into the running costs. Thus you
compare the train fare against the petrol and servicing costs. My car costs
about 7.5 pence per mile in fuel. Servicing is about £300 per 12,000 miles
which adds another 2.5 pence per mile. If only train fares were as low as 10
pence per mile! Even if insurance and tax are included, that's another £500
averaged over maybe 15,000 miles or 3 pence per mile.

I run a business which involves me taking my PC repair tools and laptop to
customers all around my region and may involve me taking/collecting PCs. No
way would that be feasible on a train/bus or on my bike. However if a
customer lives within walking distance of me and it's a nice day, I may well
walk.

So you choose your transport according to your needs and according to what's
available. Price is less of a factor in deciding how to travel - it just
bumps up the price and becomes a grudge purchase.

In message , at 16:09:36 on Sun, 28 Aug
2005, David Spiro remarked:
Just saw a news piece last night here in the states on the impact of rising
gas prices over in London. While they touched on many things, the two things
that stuck out for me were the increase in fuel efficient car usage,

Fuel efficiency is an important characteristic when choosing a car, but
this isn't a new thing. Cars are, on average, much smaller and more
efficient than those in the USA. Thinking of some common models, the
Mercedes "E" series is regarded here as a very big car, and a BMW X5 or
Range Rover is about the largest vehicle anyone would ever buy.

Despite the current high price of gas, it has not risen as fast as
inflation.

and the increase in public transport use. Are you folks who use the
system daily there noticing any true increase in passengers, and has
the congestion charge had any real effect on public transport use as
well?

Within the congestion zone itself, perhaps; but not outside it.
--
Roland Perry

"Martin Underwood" wrote in message
...
Certainly the high fuel prices in Britain (and to a lesser extent in the
rest of Europe) have been the reason for the smaller proportion of cars
with
automatic transmission (less fuel-efficient) and the higher proportion of
cars with diesel engines (more fuel-efficient) than in the US.

I agree that diesel is more fuel efficient, but, IIRC, it also tends to be
more of a pollutant that regular gasoline. Has there been any improvement in
Europe in combating this problem? As for automatic transmissions, they are
better at being fuel efficient on the highway, if there is a c"cruise
control" feature built in. (Which has become almost standard here in the
U.S.) While this feature is primarily for highway driving, it allows the
vehicle to go at a constant speed for longer periods of time, and in my
experience, has been able to inprove fuel efficency at least at highway
speeds. Automatics are probably less fuel efficent in city driving though,
and of that, I have no doubt.


Approximately 3/4 of the price of a gallon of fuel in the UK is tax -
either
fuel tax or VAT - which makes fuel one of the most heavily-taxed
commodities. To put that in context, the government take the cost of the
fuel (including distribution) and add three times that price in tax - 300%
tax is scary!

There are only 9 states that charge tax on fuel here in hte U.S., NY
included (where I live) and it has made for a comparable situation, even if
the overall price is lower.


I think use of cars versus public transport depends a lot on the
convenience. If I was going to London, where there are frequent services
to
London and within London, and I wasn't taking a lot of luggage, I'd always
use the train. But that's largely due to the greater convenience of the
train/underground in a busy city and the freedom from having to worry
about
where to park.

True, and growing up in NYC as I did, the situation is similar indeed. The
unfortunate thing about living here in Rochester is that the bus routes do
not extend far enough off of the main roads in order to make them more
accessible. If they did that, I htink more people would be inclined to use
them.

The only time I've driven in central London recently is when
I had to get from the north west (Oxford) to the south east (Lewisham) on
business a couple of years ago. I gambled on it being quicker to go
straight
through the middle (M40/A40 - Marylebone Road - City Road - Barbican -
Tower
Bridge - Old Kent Road) than round the M25 or the North Circular. It took
forever, especially around Barbican and Old Kent Road, though I'd be
interested to wonder whether the less direct ring roads would have saved
me
much time. Unfortunately in that case I was delivering a server so I had
to
go by car.

Ring road? Is that the M25? (Same as the North Circular you mentioned?)I
seem to remember driving on that at some point. I hear that is a bitch of a
road to use.


But away from a busy city, public transport takes a lot longer than a car
because it doesn't cover your whole journey, door-to-door, and it doesn't
go
exactly when you want so you have to modify when you travel to fit in with
what's available. And you can't take a carful of luggage etc on the
bus/train. And despite economies of scale, public transport (especially
trains) works out much more expensive than a car. Of course it depends how
you compare the costs, but if you assume that you need a car for some
journeys, then you will already have paid for the road fund licence and
the
insurance up-front - these are fixed costs that don't depend on how much
you
use the car so it's not fair to factor them into the running costs. Thus
you
compare the train fare against the petrol and servicing costs. My car
costs
about 7.5 pence per mile in fuel. Servicing is about £300 per 12,000 miles
which adds another 2.5 pence per mile. If only train fares were as low as
10
pence per mile! Even if insurance and tax are included, that's another
£500
averaged over maybe 15,000 miles or 3 pence per mile.

This is all true, but on the upside, there is the convenience of not having
to sit for endless amounts of time in motorway traffic, toll roads, or
dealing with other knuclhead drivers who don't know how to use the road
properly. Of course, if you can put up with train/bus delays, which can be
almost as annoying, then you might have a better experience than driving,
depending on the circumstances. This year, we launced a high speed ferry
service across Lake Ontario to Toronto. While some people have been
wondering about whether the cost is worth the trip., ($33-#37, one way,
though there are special deals, and also depending on whether you choose to
take your car on board), many who have taken this ferry have remarked how
much more convenient it is as opposed to sitting in traffic at the border
crossing, and then dealing with traffic in Toronto, and then finding
parking, etc. Toronto has a very good public transit system, so it makes
more sense to leave the car at home. There are many Canadian business people
who use the ferry regularly now, as they find it far more cost efficient.

I think in the end it all depends, as you have pointed out, what is your
destination, and what would make the most sense.


I run a business which involves me taking my PC repair tools and laptop to
customers all around my region and may involve me taking/collecting PCs.
No
way would that be feasible on a train/bus or on my bike. However if a
customer lives within walking distance of me and it's a nice day, I may
well
walk.

Makes sense. It is the equivalent of a buisiness that uses trucks to make
deliveries, or transport equipment or services. You essentially work out of
your car.

So you choose your transport according to your needs and according to
what's
available. Price is less of a factor in deciding how to travel - it just
bumps up the price and becomes a grudge purchase.

Now, can you deduct any of these expenses from your taxes if they are being
used for a legitimate business expense?

On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 09:07:59 -0400, "David Spiro"
wrote:

I agree that diesel is more fuel efficient, but, IIRC, it also tends to be
more of a pollutant that regular gasoline. Has there been any improvement in
Europe in combating this problem? As for automatic transmissions, they are
better at being fuel efficient on the highway, if there is a c"cruise
control" feature built in.

Cruise control is provided on most executive level manual-transmission
cars in the UK. If you think about it, it's not necessary to change
gear to maintain a constant speed on the motorway, certainly not in
the types of car that tend to have it, which tend to be those with
larger engines. It is fitted to more and more cars these days because
it's something that can be provided using a few lines of code in the
ECU and no additional physical hardware bar an on/off switch. It has
nothing at all to do with the transmission.

Automatics are probably less fuel efficent in city driving though,
and of that, I have no doubt.

Automatic transmissions in general are less fuel-efficient because
there are losses from the torque converter. If a converter lock-up
feature is provided, as it is with many such transmissions, the losses
can be reduced at motorway speeds, but when not engaged the losses
remain. The loss is fairly obvious in how gutless small-engined
automatic cars seem to be compared with the equivalent manual.

There are, of course, other types of automatic transmission that use
hydraulics to operate a conventional clutch and gearbox. These are
rather more efficient, but most people find that the driving
experience is uncomfortable, especially because you can lose power for
a couple of seconds at the "wrong" time while the gearbox shifts,
which can be downright dangerous at worst. CVTs are very efficient
indeed, but also don't last long enough so are uneconomic.

True, and growing up in NYC as I did, the situation is similar indeed. The
unfortunate thing about living here in Rochester is that the bus routes do
not extend far enough off of the main roads in order to make them more
accessible. If they did that, I htink more people would be inclined to use
them.

The trouble with that is that running through estates makes bus routes
slower.

I think in the end it all depends, as you have pointed out, what is your
destination, and what would make the most sense.

Indeed. I use all modes of transport as appropriate to the specific
journey, be that walking, bicycle, bus, train, car, ferry or plane.
The number of people who give me funny looks when they find that I use
the first three (and to a lesser extent #4) when I own a car is
significant and alarming at the same time.

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.

In message , David Spiro
writes

As for automatic transmissions, they are
better at being fuel efficient on the highway, if there is a c"cruise
control" feature built in. (Which has become almost standard here in the
U.S.) While this feature is primarily for highway driving, it allows the
vehicle to go at a constant speed for longer periods of time,

In my experience, having driven a Renault with this feature for 10
years, the cruise control can rarely be used on British motorways for
more than a minute or two at a time, since the traffic is far too heavy
(and I think the speeds tend to be rather faster than in the USA).

True, and growing up in NYC as I did, the situation is similar indeed. The
unfortunate thing about living here in Rochester is that the bus routes do
not extend far enough off of the main roads in order to make them more
accessible. If they did that, I htink more people would be inclined to use
them.

That certainly applies to more outlying parts of London. I live about 8
miles from the city centre, and here we have buses every few minutes
(and even every 15 minutes right through the night). This is largely as
a result of the regulated bus service in London - it means that I very
rarely drive into the middle of London (especially as there is a
congestion charge for doing so during the working day, and parking
charges are prohibitively high). Added to that is the fact that soon I
will soon be 60 and old enough to qualify for free travel on public
transport in London!

(snip)

Now, can you deduct any of these expenses from your taxes if they are being
used for a legitimate business expense?

There are now very strict limits on the way motoring expenses can be set
against tax - they include significantly better deals for the most
fuel-efficient and least polluting vehicles, and the benefit of a
company car is itself taxed.
--
Paul Terry

"Neil Williams" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 29 Aug 2005 09:07:59 -0400, "David Spiro"
wrote:

I agree that diesel is more fuel efficient, but, IIRC, it also tends to be
more of a pollutant that regular gasoline. Has there been any improvement
in
Europe in combating this problem? As for automatic transmissions, they are
better at being fuel efficient on the highway, if there is a c"cruise
control" feature built in.

Cruise control is provided on most executive level manual-transmission
cars in the UK. If you think about it, it's not necessary to change
gear to maintain a constant speed on the motorway, certainly not in
the types of car that tend to have it, which tend to be those with
larger engines. It is fitted to more and more cars these days because
it's something that can be provided using a few lines of code in the
ECU and no additional physical hardware bar an on/off switch. It has
nothing at all to do with the transmission.

Cruise control is only really useful in very light traffic. As an experiment
I tried driving at a constant 60 and then 70 on a motorway /
dual-carriageway journey today. At 60, you have to remain in the left lane,
otherwise you get in the way of traffic wanting to go faster. But in the
left lane you fall foul of HGVs and Sunday drivers trundling along at 40 or
50, so you have to either reduce to their speed or else accelerate to a
suitable speed to overtake them. At 70, you can use the middle lane without
getting V signs from people who want to get past you but you still have to
keep coming off the power to re-create a safe distance from the car in front
as cars overtake and then cut in far too close in front of you. Late at
night, I'm sure a cruise control can be quite useful; likewise I'm sure it's
invaluable in making sure you don't exceed 30 and 40 limits, especially
where these feel exceptionally slow and there is a constant tendency to
speed up to a speed that feels right for the road conditions.

Automatics are probably less fuel efficent in city driving though,
and of that, I have no doubt.

Automatic transmissions in general are less fuel-efficient because
there are losses from the torque converter. If a converter lock-up
feature is provided, as it is with many such transmissions, the losses
can be reduced at motorway speeds, but when not engaged the losses
remain. The loss is fairly obvious in how gutless small-engined
automatic cars seem to be compared with the equivalent manual.

Part of this is due to the algorithm that is used to determine when the
gearbox changes down. My experience is that automatics are far too ready to
change to a low gear in situations where I would hold onto the higher gear
but floor the accelerator - for example, when accelerating out of a
roundabout, many automatics approach in top, stay in top while going round
and then (or this is how it feels) drop into first as soon as you apply
power on the far side: you either have sluggish acceleration with no power
or else they flip into giving kick-in-the-back acceleration if you apply
just slightly more power - there's no happy medium. I had an unfortunate
experience in a hire car (for a business trip): this automatic Ford Focus,
probably a 1.6, had a pathological aversion to accelerating and would change
down as you applied more and more power, so you always ended up going at 50,
but with a choice of gears and engine speeds! Not very easy when you're
trying to overtake cars on the motorway. When I reached my destination, I
reported it to the hire company and asked for a replacement car for the
return journey.

There are, of course, other types of automatic transmission that use
hydraulics to operate a conventional clutch and gearbox. These are
rather more efficient, but most people find that the driving
experience is uncomfortable, especially because you can lose power for
a couple of seconds at the "wrong" time while the gearbox shifts,
which can be downright dangerous at worst. CVTs are very efficient
indeed, but also don't last long enough so are uneconomic.

I've heard that the automatically-controlled manual gearboxes fitted in some
Citroen C3s and VW Golfs are the bext of both worlds: the efficiency of a
manual geabox because there's no wastage in the fluid flywheel and the
convenience of a geabox that can either be totally automatic or else
sequential-manual according to preference. A colleague was very impressed
with his C3 and demonstrated that he could change up and down at will, when
accelerating, decelerating or at constant speed, with virtually no jerkiness
or loss of power.

"Paul Terry" wrote in message
...
In message , David Spiro
writes

As for automatic transmissions, they are
better at being fuel efficient on the highway, if there is a c"cruise
control" feature built in. (Which has become almost standard here in the
U.S.) While this feature is primarily for highway driving, it allows the
vehicle to go at a constant speed for longer periods of time,

In my experience, having driven a Renault with this feature for 10
years, the cruise control can rarely be used on British motorways for
more than a minute or two at a time, since the traffic is far too heavy
(and I think the speeds tend to be rather faster than in the USA).

Faster depends on where you are. Speed limits here in NY state are 65 mph on
most interstates outside of built up areas, but going to say Florida, speed
limits are 75 mph, with cars usually goign 10-15 mph faster in both states.
I think Montana at one point completely eliminated speed limits on its
interstates (a la autobahn) but I think they may have changed that policy
some tiem ago.

Now, can you deduct any of these expenses from your taxes if they are
being
used for a legitimate business expense?

There are now very strict limits on the way motoring expenses can be set
against tax - they include significantly better deals for the most
fuel-efficient and least polluting vehicles, and the benefit of a
company car is itself taxed.

Hmm.....I guess that means you can get away with a lot more here in terms of
deductions for business expenses. Cars are taxed when you re-register the
vehicle every two years, and of course when you get it inspected every year.

"David Spiro" wrote in message
...
"Martin Underwood" wrote in message
...
Certainly the high fuel prices in Britain (and to a lesser extent in the
rest of Europe) have been the reason for the smaller proportion of cars
with
automatic transmission (less fuel-efficient) and the higher proportion of
cars with diesel engines (more fuel-efficient) than in the US.

I agree that diesel is more fuel efficient, but, IIRC, it also tends to be
more of a pollutant that regular gasoline. Has there been any improvement
in
Europe in combating this problem?

A lot of modern diesel cars have "particulate filters" which trap the PM10
carbon particles and then burn them to produce CO2 which may fuel the
greenhouse effect but at least don't cause asthma. Unfortunately my car is a
couple of years too old to have a particulate filter. However I think the
design of modern diesel engines, especially those with very high-pressure
direct injection, burns the fuel more completely, leading to greater power /
lower fuel usage and also less PM10 emission. The one thing we've not seen
much in the UK is bio diesel - produced from biological sources such as rape
seed - or recycled diesel which processes waste cooking oil to produce
diesel. For some reason, the rises in the price of fuel over the past few
months have affected diesel prices more than petrol: going back a few years,
diesel used to be slightly cheaper than petrol, then it drew level and
became 1-2 pence/litre more expensive, but stilll cheaper than leaded or
lead-replacement petrol; now it's consistently the most expensive fuel on
the forecourt, typically 5 pence/litre more than unleaded. Since the fuel
duty (a fixed rate that's not dependent on the raw material cost) hasn't
changed, I'm not sure what's happened.

Still, as long as my trusty Peugeot continues to do 50 miles/gallon (that's
about 40 miles per US gallon), I'm happy. At the time of the fuel strikes in
2000, I was commuting about 90 miles a day until I moved closer to where I
work and a colleague was doing a similar distance. The difference was, my
car did 50 mpg and had a range of about 650 miles between fillings, whereas
he had an imported Buick or Cadillac which did about 15 mpg. Many people
(such as him) were having to take days of work because they were about to
run out of fuel and even the trains and buses were cutting their services to
conserve fuel, whereas I managed (just) to find sufficent garages that were
open so I could keep going.

The fuel strikes actually raised an interesting legal issue: diesel for
off-road use (eg heating oil, generators, farm vehicles etc) is taxed at a
much lower rate. It is dyed red to distinguish it from DERV (diesel engined
road vehicle) diesel, and it is a serious offence to use red diesel in cars
and lorries. At the time of the strikes, these rules were relaxed because
fuel was in such short supply and you were allowed to use red diesel if you
could find it. The red dye stains the parts of the engine - even if the
police don't find red fuel in the tank, they can still (in extreme cases)
take the engine apart to look for tell-tale staining. But once you allow
cars to use red diesel legally for a while, you can't rely on that ever
again to prove whether a car has been illegally using red diesel - anyone
caught (as long as they don't actually have the fuel in the tank) can say
"oh, that's from when I was allowed to use it during the fuel strike".

As for automatic transmissions, they are
better at being fuel efficient on the highway, if there is a c"cruise
control" feature built in. (Which has become almost standard here in the
U.S.) While this feature is primarily for highway driving, it allows the
vehicle to go at a constant speed for longer periods of time, and in my
experience, has been able to inprove fuel efficency at least at highway
speeds. Automatics are probably less fuel efficent in city driving though,
and of that, I have no doubt.

Ring road? Is that the M25? (Same as the North Circular you mentioned?)I
seem to remember driving on that at some point. I hear that is a bitch of
a
road to use.

There are two ring roads around London. The M25 motorway is roughly 15-20
miles away from the centre of London. It's at least 3-lane and in the
busiest section to the south-west of London it's 4-lane. However it's become
a victim of its own success: so much traffic uses it that in busy periods it
becomes clogged with traffic so you need to drive slower - in fact many
sections have variable speed limits which come into force to slow traffic
down when it gets busy. Since these are stringently enforced, you get the
absurd situation of 4 lanes of traffic all doing 50.0 mph with one lane not
moving relative to another, which makes it virtually impossible to move to
Lane 1 when you want to leave the motorway; many times I've stayed in Lane 1
if I'm only going a few junctions because before now I've got trapped in a
further-right lane with no-one letting me in (even though I indicate a mile
before the junction) to start moving left to exit. Also, at busy periods,
people think the laws of physics don't apply and don't leave enough stopping
distance between them and the car in front: if you leave a sensible space,
someone nips in and you have to brake to re-create a gap which someone then
takes - and so on ad infinitum.

Then there's the North- and South-Circular roads (A406 and A205
respectively) which are about 5-10 miles from the centre and consist of what
used to be ordinary single-carriageway roads which have been widened in
places where there's space but in other places remain one lane in each
direction (the notorious Hanger Lane section between the M4 and the M40
springs to mind) so that too gets very congested and leads to
bumper-to-bumper stop-start traffic jams. It also has frequent traffic light
junctions which further slow the traffic down.

When I was going to London I went straight through the middle; when I was
coming back I went via the North Circular which was a good 20 miles further
and didn't seem to take any less time because of avoiding the city centre.
My experience with driving in London is that in the centre it's very busy
but traffic keeps moving - sometimes you can reach 30, a lot of the time
your at about 20, but as long as you look a long way ahead and don't get
stuck behind a row of parked cars in the left lane, waiting till some kind
person lets you pull out, then you keep moving. The worse congestion is in
the suburbs a few miles out of the centre (Shepherd's Bush, Willesden,
Streatham etc) where even in quiet times you usually end up stationary for
fairly long periods of time. I've not driven in London since the Congestion
Charge was introduced, so I don't know whether it's led to an increase of
traffic on the roads just outside the zone which are diverting to avoid
paying the charge.

"Roland Perry" wrote in message
.uk...
In message , at 16:09:36 on Sun, 28 Aug
2005, David Spiro remarked:
Just saw a news piece last night here in the states on the impact of
rising
gas prices over in London. While they touched on many things, the two
things
that stuck out for me were the increase in fuel efficient car usage,

Fuel efficiency is an important characteristic when choosing a car, but
this isn't a new thing. Cars are, on average, much smaller and more
efficient than those in the USA. Thinking of some common models, the
Mercedes "E" series is regarded here as a very big car, and a BMW X5 or
Range Rover is about the largest vehicle anyone would ever buy.

Despite the current high price of gas, it has not risen as fast as
inflation.

I'm surprised that it's risen at less than the rate of inflation. Since I
started keeping records of my fuel consumption and fuel charges, the price
has risen from about 45 pence to 95 pence between 1993 and 2005. So that's
just over a 100% increase in 12 years or an average of about 9% per year. I
wonder what the average rate of inflation has been over that period? I know
it used to be a lot higher than the 2-3% it is now, but I bet the average
isn't as high as 9%.