Perception Shift - Car VS Plane from Canberra to Melbourne

[dalekboy]

I meant to put this post up a few weeks back, but now is more topical, I think.

I'm heading down to Melbourne in a few days to go to the Discworld convention.

Now I had wondered about flying down. It's quicker, easier and is less likely to knock me about. And if over time I get to a point where driving is too difficult then I'll have to look at my options. Looking at my options will include looking at the financial side and the greenhouse impact. As I just said in someone else's LJ, you want the governments to change their ways, you have to change first, and make a bit of noise about it. It's only when they see that it's a political issue that they'll act definitively.

After my recent trip to Parkes, I had a good idea of travel time, the fuel consumption of my car, what that worked out to in a dollar amount, etc. So before I look at the cost to the planet for a single trip to Melbourne, let's just look at the time and money going one way.




Driving

This will cost about $55 in petrol and LPG, with me doing approximately 3/4 to 4/5 on LPG. Let's assume I'm having a good day and say it'll take me about 9.5 hours with breaks to get to Melbourne. I'll probably grab something to eat or drink on the way, so let's say that costs me another $20.

So $75 and 9.5 hours travel


For the aeronautical trip there are a few variations, but let's assume that instead of the $110 I paid last time, I've kept my eyes open for cheap flights and gotten one of the rare $75 ones.

Using that as a starting point, it's only a 1 hour flight to Melbourne, it's cost me the same, bargain!

But wait.

I have to be at the airport at least 30 minutes before the flight. Chances are I'll be there 45 min before departure time, maybe more. At the other end there will probably be another half-hour to collect luggage. There's another 1.25 hours.

So, $75 and 2.25 hours, if I live right next to the airport and don't have to travel far from Tullamarine.


Variation One

I still need to get to and from the airport. That's probably a total travel time of 1 hour. We'll assume that I didn't eat or drink anything at the airport or on the plane, since I know it'll be overpriced and I won't have to hold out long. Oh, and there will likely be airport carpark fees at both ends, say $10 total. I haven't paid whoever drove me for petrol because I'm a cheap bastard.

V1 gives us $85 and 3.25 hours travel. Still not bad.


Variation Two

I get a taxi at both ends, because my friends are all busy or nobody likes me. Assuming I don't have a wait for the taxis, the time spent doesn't go up. Let's be conservative and say that the taxis in total have only cost $60.

V2 is $135 and 3.25 hours travel. Okay, that's blown the cheapness out of the water, but it's still only taking me a third of the time. So long as my taxis are prompt or waiting, there aren't any flight delays, etc.


Variation Three

This is what I did last time I did a trip to Melbourne. The flight was at noon.

Bus into the city, then bus to airport. With walking to and between buses, and waiting times it took me a total of 2.5 hours to get there an hour before my flight. I could have gotten there half an hour before, but if I had been delayed or missed one connection, I would either have had to get a taxi or missed my flight.

At the other end, bus from airport into city, then train, then another bus to get to Tiki's. With waiting times we were looking at another 1.5 hours.

Then there's the extra cost involved. I'm a concession, so public transport at either end, plus Airbus ($7 Can) and Skybus ($15 Melb) ends up costing a total of around $25. Plus I got hungry and thirsty, so there was another $15.

V3 = $115 and 6 hours travel time. I think I actually had longer waits, and I possibly spent more, but these are conservative estimates based on a $75 economy fare, rather than the more common $99-$150.


In terms of my actual original airfare and travel time for value, we're talking double the cost of driving for a saving of only one-third the travel time. So for me, the saving of $75 for an extra three or so hours of travel makes it very much more worthwhile to drive.

Plus, on a personal level, I get the joys (or hassles) of really travelling. Seeing different places and people, experiencing the country, getting a feel for what it's actually like outside the small part of Australia that I inhabit.

Then there's an economic argument for car travel - the money I spend on petrol, food, accommodation if I stay somewhere, mostly goes into a local economy.

Small towns in Australia need our cash way more than huge airline companies.


Greenhouse Cost

Now these are pretty approximate, based on figures only from the calculator from Carbon Neutral. If people want to point me towards other or better calculators for cars/planes over a set distance, then please do.

Just looking at the pure impact of the petrol/airfuel consumed, it's actually a pretty close race.

1970's Holden with single passenger running on 20% petrol/80% LPG = 0.17 tonnes of Greenhouse waste.

Average Plane running at 80% passenger capacity = 0.16 tonnes per person of Greenhouse waste products.

Of course, the plane gets to fly direct so only goes about two-thirds the actual distance. And if there are two people in the car, or less people in the plane, the car wins out.

************************

There are plenty of good reasons to fly or drive between cities, but before you do, you may want to take in all the factors. Sometimes when the bargain seems too good, it pays to have another look.

Comments

[splodgenoodles.livejournal.com]

There is another factor.

What if the person making this trip was unwell, and the effort involved might have a serious impact on their health? Would you not consider the cost to their health to be important and so cut them some slack both in terms of money, time and greenhouse gasses?

Personally, when a person has a disability or serious chronic illness, I'm all in favor of special accommodations being made to give that person good quality of life in order to enable them to participate in normal activities.

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

Totally agree that those who are unwell need to be cut slack. There are people who, through no fault of their own, need special exemptions to maintain quality of life. It's no different in my mind to having disabled parking spaces.

It's a matter of degrees. Me driving to Melbourne may seriously effect how well I do for a few days afterwards, or it may not. However, until I can say for certain that driving will have an overall negative effect, and that flying to negate that effect is worth it, I should be driving.

There's a very real chance that I'll be getting a disabled parking permit, but my intention is only to use it on the bad days, or on the days where I'm pretty certain that I'll be doing enough that I'll be wanting as short a walk as possible at the end.

It's making the distinction between "I deserve this level of quality, regardless," and "What do I actually need to maintain a good quality of life?"

[rendragon.livejournal.com]

May I be picky and suggest that unless petrol is very cheap in Canberra at the moment (it certainly isn't in Melbourne), that you'll probably spend more than $55 on fuel? You know your car better than I do, but it sounds a rather mean estimate to me....

Other option is the bus/train from Canberra. Having looked at train fares to Sydney, this probably isn't a cheaper option, but it may be competitive, puts you in the city (Melbourne) and is a bit more "Fun". The V/Line webpage says Melbourne to Canberra is an 8 hour trip by bus/train (Bus Canberra to Aubury, Train Aubury to Melb).

Feel free to argue me down...I'm an addicted car-o-hollic and only take the plane when time restricts :)

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

My car runs on petrol and LPG.

Mileage is better on the petrol than on the gas, but the gas is significantly cheaper. On long trips, for every 100 miles (160km) I do 20 miles on petrol and 80 miles on gas. So only a quarter of the distance is actually on petrol, the rest is on gas that costs $0.50 a litre.

My car being older however, doesn't get as good a mileage as modern cars. 8.5km per litre of petrol, 7km per litre of gas. In a modern car that gets around 10km per litre (some do much better) you're looking at about $77 in petrol costs. So you can add the $20 for food and drink and say it's a hundred dollar trip.

But if we're going to be that realistic, then the plane trip is likely to end up costing much more than my examples.

Have looked at buses and trains. Buses aren't bad, trains you have to go to Sydney first (from memory). But I know I looked at buses at one point and it was over $100! Mind you, I also found that most of the bus companies had pages that were hopeless at giving you the basic details needed, so I didn't look too hard.

Trains and buses usually work out to be the most environmentally friendly options, though.

[kaths.livejournal.com]

V/Line's quite good actually, I got it from Wangaratta to Melbourne a few weeks ago, and with concession it works out quite cheap.

Pay a bit extra for first class, and you'll probably have an empty seat next to you which you can use to lie down quite comfortably if you want to :) And you still get to watch the countryside, without the energy drain of having to drive...

[davidcook.livejournal.com]

I think says something about the sorry state of rail travel in Australia that train wasn't one of the options considered above. rendragon says it takes 8 hours and even then involves bus and train combined. Glasgow to London is about the same distance as Melb/Can (about 400 miles), and takes around 4.5-5 hours - not much less than flying, once you add in getting to airport, waiting time, possible delayed flights, etc. Also much less stressful (especially with a fencing bag!).
CO₂-wise, train appears to be well ahead of plane or car (according to this site, at least).

The thing is, it doesn't need to be a "super-fast rail" scheme which costs zillions and uses gee-whiz technology. It needs to be simple but well-engineered - ordinary trains can easily do 160km/h on well-maintained track. And it needs to run regularly. Trains from both Glasgow and Edinburgh run at least hourly to London, and every 15-30 minutes at peak times. Also, some trains are now providing wi-fi networks so workaholics (or LJ addicts) can do their thing en route.

(ooops, I think I found a rantable topic !)

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

I much preferred the train to flying for getting from Newcastle upon Tyne to London.

It's three hours with decent legroom rather than close to an hour waiting at the airport, an uncomfortable one hour flight, and 20 minutes on the underground getting from the airport to anywhere central. And it was cheaper.

Driving was closer to five hours, and if there were two of you it was cheaper again (unless booking train tickets two months in advance for a precise time - another rant), but considerably more stressful, and involved driving around London at the far end. Best avoided.

[thinarthur.livejournal.com]

I find Melb airport very stressful, though not sure how that matches up with travelling by road that far. There's also the bus routes, though not sure how that compares farewise these days.