It's better not to travel
BBC
You know that global warming thing? It's a bit of a shitter, innit? So, if you're travelling it'd be great if you could take the most environmentally friendly option, no?
Well, yes as a matter of fact, it would! And that is why train travel in Europe is so much more affordable and efficient than flying.
Oh no, that's complete bollocks, as Laura Hall finds out for BBC Travel. Y'see while travelling by train emits less carbon than going by air, it's expensive, complex, and slow in comparison.
Across the continent, flights are priced at a fraction of the cost of train tickets, hampering the growing number of people who want to travel sustainably. The big question is: why?
Laura Hall, Europe wants you to travel by train. But why is it so complex and expensive?, BBC Travel
While Hall's account opens by claiming that the low cost of flying hampers sustainable travel, it's a non sequitur. The options for people to travel sustainably by means other than flying are unaffected by the price of flights, should they be so motivated.
As such I assume that Hall's big question
is not why low flight prices hamper sustainable travel, so much as why are they lower in the first place.
At face value, a simple answer to the question of price differential seems to be that aviation fuel is untaxed, compared to diesel which is. This is a strange explanation on its own when many European passenger rail routes use line-fed electricity. It becomes stranger still when you consider the argument to make train travel more attractive: increase taxes and levies on flying.
That might be a good thing in a wider environmental context, but it hardly addresses the question of rail being too costly. If people genuinely want to travel sustainably, making less sustainable alternatives more expensive is not the answer; it doesn't magically make the sustainable option more affordable, or less complex, or quicker.
Or perhaps the growing number of people who want to travel sustainably
are not truly dedicated to sustainability at all, beyond a flex, and need other options to be made less appealing first.
Byway, a UK sustainable travel agent, advocates in favour of levies for frequent fliers, flight taxes and a ban on domestic short-haul flights.
This is little more than market manipulation to make their fundamentally less-appealing travel offering less unappealing; once again ignoring the fact that cost is only one factor, and possibly not even the most pressing.* We've seen this situation before; companies with a vested interest in alternatives advocating for their competition to be penalised so as to boost interest in their own offering. Not unlike an athlete gaming the race by tying their betters' shoelaces together.
Sustainability communications consultant Jo Geneen is based in Amsterdam and regularly travels across Europe by train to meetings in Hamburg, Paris and London. But she's one of a growing number of consumers feeling frustrated about the difficulties of travelling by train compared to the far-less-sustainable option of flying. "I recently booked a trip to Hamburg from Amsterdam," Geneen said. "I was forced to cancel it at the last minute, and found the ticket was non-refundable. It's so frustrating: it already cost more." She was left with the choice of rebooking the trip, knowing it was non-refundable and more expensive, or booking a faster, flexible and refundable flight. Sadly, it was an easy choice to make. "As a consumer, how can we make the right decisions? When you're faced with routes that are four or five times cheaper to fly, it's so hard to do the right thing."
Laura Hall, Europe wants you to travel by train. But why is it so complex and expensive?, BBC Travel
Clearly, it's the inflexibility of the rail network that's the real problem in this case, yet Geneen's dilemma in wanting to do the right thing
is couched in terms of flying being so damnably cheap. How does the cost of the air option in any way affect the flexibility, speed, and overall customer experience of rail? Make it make sense.
Perhaps jet fuel should be taxed, I dunno. There must be a good reason why it's not already; after all, it's unlike governments to leave money on the table. Even if it were taxed though, other punitive measures should not be applied unless fairly balanced. Tax frequent flyers? Sure, as long as other travel incentive programmes are similarly taxed. And, while you're at it, improve the rail operators' mindset to make the sustainable option more attractive across the board. And bloody good luck with that.
But, hey, look on the bright side.
While the journey might be slower, you don't have to check in two hours before, you avoid long security screening queues, and you arrive in the heart of a city, not an hour away from it. All this means that, for many routes, you're not losing a significant amount of time on the way.
Laura Hall, Europe wants you to travel by train. But why is it so complex and expensive?, BBC Travel
Until you fall victim to the intervening national railway workers' strike or the wrong kind of leaves on the line that you would otherwise have flown over. Innit?
* Last year, we took our daughter to Paris for her birthday. We wanted to go by train, but try as we might not only was it more expensive, it required multiple changes and four or more hours travelling, including one option with an overnight stay on a station platform. The plane was far quicker; way more convenient; and, yes, cheaper. But not only was it cheaper, it was far quicker and way more convenient. And that was just going through France, from Basel.