Transport in the UK

Briefly about the main thing

Hilly and flat, traditional and cosmopolitan, foggy and bright, the UK is riddled with a network of roads – many ideal high-speed tracks, railways, local and international land and water routes.

However, for all the romance of the legendary landscape, as well as double-decker buses and cabs, the indestructible symbols of Great Britain and London in particular, the British transport system has a number of weak points. Experts note that the main problem is the lack of a unified transport policy in the state. And first of all, the government has not developed a long-term strategy that would "balance" the needs of motorists and those who use public transport.

As a result, the UK has one of the most congested (albeit developed) transport networks in Europe; and the privatization of railways has only exacerbated the situation by increasing the number of personal vehicles on the country's roads. Which, however, does not mean that it is necessary to have a personal car for a comfortable life in Britain. First of all, this applies to large cities in which the public transport system is quite adequate, although it is very expensive in comparison with the cost of similar services in Russia. Here a local resident can completely avoid paying for the maintenance of the car and parking (and at the entrance to the center of London – also an additional fee of £11.50). However, it is usually much more convenient for residents of villages and towns remote from the main railway and automobile routes to have their own cars.

How to get to the UK

There are several ways to get to the UK, but the geographical features of the island state dictate to travelers the need to think more carefully about their route.

By plane

Direct flights connect Moscow and London on a daily and year-round basis. The Russian air carrier "Aeroflot" departs from Moscow Sheremetyevo airport, and the British company "strong>British Airways"departs from "Domodedovo". The flight from both Russian airports lasts about four hours and ends at the busiest air harbor in Europe, Heathrow, and from November 15, 2016, planes from Russia will also land at Gatwick. You will have to pay 16,000-20,000 rubles for round-trip tickets.

Only British Airways flies to St. Petersburg, and the travel time (3 hours 40 minutes), as well as the cost of tickets (from 17,500 rubles), differ slightly from Moscow indicators.

A flight to Edinburgh, Cardiff or Belfast takes place with a transfer in one of the European cities, which, by the way, has little effect on the cost of tickets in comparison with the cost of air travel on the route Moscow-London.

By train

It is not possible to get directly from Russian cities to Britain by train. An option with a minimum number of transfers – 37 hours of travel from Moscow to Paris, and already in the French capital, transfer to the Eurostar train, which takes the traveler to London in two hours. In this case, the total (Russian Railways + Eurostar) the one-way fare will be about €350-400. Early booking of a Moscow-Paris ticket will not affect the fare in any way, while the Eurostar pricing policy is much more flexible: if you buy a ticket a couple of months before the trip, then instead of the standard €100, you can buy it, for example, for €56.

By car and ferry

The route by private transport can become no less tedious in terms of the number of stops and transfers in comparison with using public transport, but, of course, it can be much more diverse and interesting. First you need to get to one of the ports of mainland Europe: it can be the French port cities of Le Havre, Caen, Cherbourg, Saint-Malo or Roscoff, or settlements located in the north of Spain, Santander or Bilbao. It is from here that passenger ferries depart, heading to the British ports of Portsmouth, Poole and Plymouth, as well as to the Irish city of Cork. For example, a ferry crossing from Le Havre in France to Portsmouth, the nearest port to the British capital, will cost about £30 for one passenger and in one line. The same route, on the same date, but with a car will cost 79. The cheapest transport for ferry transportation is a bicycle, a passenger with his bike can travel for 35.

To date, ships from Scandinavia (Denmark, Norway, Sweden), France and the Netherlands are moored to the shores of the UK, but, as a rule, these are either cargo ships or cruise liners traveling around Europe, along the Mediterranean or Caribbean Seas. By the way, transatlantic flights are still departing from the port of Southampton to New York, and it was on this route that the infamous Titanic went. A classic seven-day trip across the Atlantic aboard a modern (and safe!) The Queen Mary 2 vessel will cost from £700 per person.

How to get around the country

In recent years, the rapid growth of labor migration has gradually increased the number of cars on the roads of British megacities, which means that the deterioration of the ecological state was no more than a matter of time. The British authorities tried in every possible way to limit the harmful effects of vehicles on the environment: they introduced a fee for entry into certain areas, exempting cars with alternative fuels from duties, increased the cost of parking, and finally made an attempt to popularize bicycles.

So, at the initiative of the now former mayor of London Boris Johnson, 839 bicycle parking lots were organized in the capital, and any of the 13,600 bicycles can be used for a symbolic fee, by London standards. For access to a bicycle for 24 hours, you must pay £2, followed by an hourly fee: the first 30 minutes are free, and £2 are paid for every subsequent 30 minutes. But you have to be careful and vigilant, for example, if you get a rest in the park, "parking" a bicycle nearby (this is what many tourists do), the amount of parking can cost an unlucky cyclist up to 300 pounds, which will be deducted from the card. Despite the capital's traffic and gas pollution, the residents of London do not neglect this method of transportation either: they take a bicycle at home and rent it near work. This method is both budget-friendly and convenient, since more and more transport infrastructure (parking lots, new bike paths) is being created specifically for cyclists. Indeed, the number of bike lanes has increased dramatically over the past year - this was due to the narrowing of car lanes throughout central London, and, accordingly, affected the density of car traffic.

Outside of London, bicycles are actively used only in a few student cities, mostly residents of peripheral cities and large district centers travel by cars and public transport.

Public transport

The travel card system allows passengers to use public transport on more favorable terms than for single trips. For example, you can purchase a combined train, bus, metro and ferry pass, take advantage of seasonal price reductions or buy a ticket outside rush hour. 

Despite the fact that more people use public transport in London than in any other European city, metropolitan transport remains very expensive. Thus, London fares are four times higher than the ticket prices in Rome and 15 times higher than the fare in Budapest. Nevertheless, trips by any type of public transport have a fairly wide price range and there is almost always a choice of several options.

So, to pay for tickets for the subway, bus and tram in London, you need to purchase an Oyster or Travel Card – recently, cash payment for London buses has been canceled. You will have to pay £3 for the production of the tourist version of the Oyster Card, but in the future this will help to save almost half of the standard cost on each ticket. For example, a single trip on the London Underground within the first zone on the Oyster card costs 2.4, while the standard fare here is 4.9. Moreover, if you repeatedly use Oyster for one day, the maximum amount is limited depending on the type of transport used and travel zones. The situation is about the same with the famous British buses, the so-called double deckers, the difference in the cost of a standard ticket and travel on the Oyster cardis 1 pound (£2.5 vs £1.5). It should be noted that you can not buy a ticket at all, but use a contactless credit (debit) card – today this is the most popular option among Londoners along with payment via Apple Pay. Also, since September 2016, a new option has appeared in London buses: the ticket is valid for an hour, that is, by paying once, you can change the route as many times as you want.  

Rail transport: urban and intercity

Avoiding the famous British traffic jams helps urban rail transport – metro and commuter trains (trams can also be conditionally attributed to the same category). The subway in the usual sense for us is only in London, Newcastle and Glasgow. In addition to London, various railway options are developed in Manchester, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Cardiff, Belfast, Leeds and Liverpool.

The railway network in the UK is the oldest in the world. To date, there are five high-speed trunk lines operating in the country, diverging from London to the rest of the country, which allows connecting administrative centers with peripheral areas. In addition, there are regional railway lines and a dense network of suburban roads. Traveling around the country by train is much more expensive than by car, but unlike, for example, intercity buses, it is trains that allow you to get to any, even the most remote corner of Britain.

Of course, London is considered the main transport hub of the country. There are 14 railway stations in the city. So, trains from England to Wales depart from London Paddington station, from here trains depart to the international and the busiest airport in the UK and throughout Europe, Heathrow. There are trains from Euston Station to the western part of Scotland, as well as to ferries going to Ireland and Northern Ireland. Major cities of mainland Europe are connected to London by the railway line of St. Pancras International station. For example, a trip between the capitals of England and Scotland will start from London King's Cross station, will last a little less than five hours and will cost from £60 (standard class, without the possibility of refund and ticket exchange). A trip along the same route in a first-class carriage will already cost about £250.

A trip from London to Paris by Eurostar train through the famous tunnel under the English Channel will cost about £65, but often this trip is comparable in both time and cost to air travel. Early booking and purchase of railway tickets for weekdays on the round-trip route allows you to save money.

City and intercity buses

Bus is another way to explore the country inside and out. In addition, it is more budget-friendly than railways. There are various companies offering a variety of routes between cities, including special tours of historic places in England. It is worth remembering that tickets for intercity buses must be purchased in advance, otherwise, if you postpone it until the moment of boarding, the tickets will be sold out, and all the seats are occupied. The main, but certainly not the only bus operators in the UK are National Express, Megabus, easyBus and Scottish Citylink. Thus, the official website of National Express promises more than 100 British destinations at a price of £5, and 450 routes to Europe and Ireland at a price of £15, and Megabus often offers seats on intercity flights for just 1 pound. In fact, a bus trip from London (Victoria Coach Station ) to Edinburgh on National Express costs from £18, and an hour trip from Manchester to Liverpool will really cost £5, or even £3. If if you buy tickets for Megabus in advance, you can get from London to Manchester for £1.

As for the famous "double deckers", on average, when buying a ticket right before boarding the bus, its cost will be "pound;1.5.

Taxi

A taxi, or rather a black cab, is another iconic symbol of Great Britain. All trips are charged according to the meter: you will have to pay 2.80 for boarding, and 3.3 for each km of the way. This is not a cheap pleasure, so locals relatively rarely use this type of transport, preferring minicabs or Uber or Gett mobile application services. So, when ordering a taxi through Gett, a black cab will be served to the entrance, and if you specify the route in advance in the application, then the trip will have a fixed price, much cheaper than the counter and a little more expensive than Uber rates. That is, this is a great opportunity to use a black cab, but at a more affordable price.

Modern technologies to help travelers

One of the advantages of the UK transport system over the Russian one is its accessibility to people with disabilities. Many transport agencies publish information leaflets for travelers with disabilities, and elderly, blind or disabled people can apply to the local council and get a free or discounted travel pass. As a rule, buses are equipped with a special footrest, which is controlled by the driver. Thanks to it, a passenger traveling in a wheelchair can get into the bus without assistance, inside which the wheelchair is securely fixed. Surprisingly, on the streets of London you see a lot of disabled people moving independently: at first it seems quite strange. Exactly until you realize that the state provides these people with a true opportunity to move around the city freely, without outside help. Ramps, rails, footboards – there is absolutely everything for unhindered movement on any kind of terrain. The same point, by the way, also applies to travelers with heavy suitcases: even from somewhere in the suburbs of London, heavy luggage will not have to be lifted and dragged: a system of escalators, thoughtful ramps and elevators will help you conveniently get to the train station or airport.

Of course, it is impossible to lose sight of such seemingly exotic modes of transport as a cable car and a river tram. All of them are concentrated in London and the largest cities of the foggy Albion, and not for nothing, because the maximum flow of foreign travelers and expats settles, as a rule, in these directions. So, in London, you can ride on a cable car built by the Arab airline Emirates Airline for the 2012 Summer Olympics. To date, a 6-minute pleasure will cost 3.5 pounds, and in the evening the duration of the trip is doubled and supplemented with a colorful video with musical accompaniment. Or another interesting mode of transport is the MBNA Thames Clipper high-speed boat on the Thames, which transports passengers from 20 piers located on both banks of the Thames in central and east London. A ticket costs from £4.20 to £8 for an adult, and if you use an Oyster card, its cost will be £3.90-7.20. For many residents of London, this is an indispensable form of transport for traveling to work from such distant areas as, for example, Vulich.

For public transport users, there are also a large number of convenient smartphone applications that allow you to plan a route with a combination of several types of public transport, as well as track train and bus schedules in real time. This allows, for example, not to wait for the bus at the bus stop in ignorance, but to approach a couple of minutes before its arrival.

Useful applications for travelers

Today it is difficult to imagine a trip to another country without an electronic gadget with a lot of useful applications. Here are a few programs that can definitely come in handy when traveling in England:

Citymapper is an application for finding the optimal and fastest route from one point to another. Shows the arrival time of a particular bus and another type of transport.

MAPS.ME detailed offline maps of cities. A huge selection of localities and the ability to use them without an Internet connection are the undeniable advantages of the application.

National Express is the official website of the national operator of bus routes, which allows you to book a ticket to many cities in Britain and Europe. 

Trainline is a program that allows you to book and buy a ticket toa train.

NationalRail is the official website of the railways, where you can plan a route, see the schedule and the current situation with trains in case of delays or breakdowns.

UK Bus Times Live is an Android gadget app. A route map and a public transport travel planner with timetables for buses, trains, trams, metro and ferries. Covers the whole of the UK and operates on the entire mainland (England, Scotland, Wales).

Tube Map London Underground interactive map of the London underground.

Uber or Gett applications to search for taxis or private drivers.

PortalHomesOverseas.ru  thanks for the help in preparing the article Irina Simonyan (Henley & Partners Switzerland AG), Egor Shishkovsky (LondonDom) and Elena Myers (Domovoi Management Ltd).

photocredits: flickr

Olga Shoshina

HomesOverseas.ru