I recently did the jump from Reddit to Lemmy and I found this community here while I was still looking for subjects to follow. I have been following rail specific subjects (more the construction and operation of) in the few countries that I have lived in since about 2004 so some of the posts here really drew me in.
Since moving to Dubai, I wanted to go carless but my work is too remote so I did opt to get a car. I also like travelling by train so I just thought I would give an anecdotal case study of the difference between driving and taking the metro here. I also thought this would be quite interesting as the Metro system is quite young and the roads in the UAE is generally the best I have seen from Europe/North America/Africa and the Middle East (of course, I didn’t see all of the roads).
Last weekend I found myself parked walking distance from Al Furjan Metro station and wanted to go close to the Metro station in JBR. This immediately made me think which option would be quicker and I checked the train schedule and it said the ride would take 11 mins and the train is running every 3 and a half minutes - 15 minutes worse case scenario including the bit of walking. I took the car and parked and walked and it took me 12 minutes to get to my destination, which would be the same as the best case scenario. The train stops at 4 stations in between, which is probably what makes this comparable.
This made me consider the other variables as well. So I decided to compare the cost. Just taking the fuel in account the trip would have cost me $0.6 for the trip in the car and this would be $3.27 for two people in the train (gold class). But I figured that isn’t a very fair comparison. Lucklily I have a detailed log of my car fuel expenditure and I also log the depreciation and other expenses on my car. My car is not the cheapest one in the world, but I am also comparing it to the highest class ticket so I am just comparing it from the type of car I would want to drive and type of service I would want for the train. Adding in what my roadtrip app calculates my total cost per km. The car trip would be $2.80.
So for this trip the car came in a little bit cheaper than the gold class tickets. But if it was a solo trip it would be significantly cheaper to just take the train ($1.64). Also you could opt for the normal ticket that is $0.82 for this trip.
If you need to walk around outside the walkways, the Metro also has a nice feeder bus and tram system that is drops you 50-100 meters (55 - 110 yards) away from most points that I would be interested in.
So in conclusion, if I travel solo in Dubai, the Metro would definitely be my first choice. The ticket for two is also worth it for me as it just reduces the stress by that much.
Edit: I should probably also mention that this would probably be a harsh comparison on public transport as fuel is very cheap here and there is no tax on cars (or almost nothing if there is something)
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One thing I either missed or wasn’t stated is the daily cost of ownership. If you purchased on a loan, you have a monthly fee, which can be a daily fee. Then you have insurance and maintenance, but no one knows how much maintenance is, so we typically underestimate it. And even if your vehicle is paid off, you still have that flat cost, which you could compute to a daily rate for the current lifetime of ownership.
For example, I had a car in the US that I paid $25k for after taxes and bogus upsells that I didn’t need. Then I had insurance, which was expensive where I lived. My monthly cost just to own it was ~$600/month for the note and insurance, not even including gas.
So, your trip calculation then becomes the daily rate / # of trips, then you add on the other fees, so for a two leg trip, each leg would cost me $20 for that day plus maintenance, gas, parking.
And that doesn’t account for how much parking raises costs elsewhere, as noted in the book, The High Cost of Free Parking by Donald Shoup: https://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Free-Parking-Updated/dp/193236496X
Every maintenance/fuel/insurance expense have been included in this with the app roadmap. I used depreciation of the vehicle rather than the monthly payment, but as the car is still relatively new these amounts are rather close to one another. The deposit is not factored in though. My cost to own without fuel works out to about $625 a month. About $800 a month with fuel. Butt UAE in general don’t have taxes like most of the other places that would have the car price more expensive and the fuel is really cheap in comparison to most places I have been.
Parking is generally free where I stay and where I go, but we pay buy sms so I can probably go count the amount that I have paid this year, but I doubt it would be more than $10 for the last year. Just counted and it works out to $18. I think the parking cost is heavily dependent on where you stay though.
The total cost breakdown works out to about $27 a day and $0.31 per km (which converts roughly to $0.50 per mile) and it is what I used in the calculation.
Thanks for the reference, I will check out the link a bit later.
Edit: total cost breakdown added and parking for the last year
I find cost comparisons between cars and public transport that factor depreciation and tax always a bit disingenuous, if the goal is to get people to take public transport more often.
Once you have a car, you will have this costs regardless of whether you take public transport or not.
Only if you don’t have a car yet at all, only then does such a comparison become useful.
What I do always miss here is the cost of parking. Probably Dubai is an oddball again, but at least in European cities parking is a significant expense.
Let’s do a comparison from my Dutch perspective. If I go to the city center of my place of residence by public transport (tram) it takes me 24 minutes by public transport, of which 8 are by foot, getting to the tram stop. By car it’s 15 minutes, but that is on a Saturday morning with barely any traffic. The tram would cost me €2.08, single trip. By car it’s 6.4km. My car runs about 1l/20km, and at current fuel prices of €2.01/l, that’s (6.4/20)*2.01 = € 0.64. Including return trip that makes €4.16 for the tram vs €1.28 by car. So far, car wins by a long shot. But now comes parking. This is a whopping €6 per hour. So if I stay just 2 hours, the total variable cost for the car trip amounts to €13.28. Suddenly the car is 3 times as expensive.
In real life I’d probably go by bike anyway, costing me a grand total of €0.
Hmm, that parking is expensive, about 18 times more expensive than here. The difficulty here and other places I have been to is that there are some big malls that have their own free parking. Or free parking as long as you have a minimum spend there. I know across Europe there isn’t really mega malls etc, so parking can be better used to restrict cars.
I just wanted to factor in life cycle costs, but I understand why you would feel that way
I must say I do admire the biking culture, but I think that might be a bit unpractical here for a large part of the year.
I think most people will jump on the public transport as soon as it becomes convenient enough. I mean, if it wasn’t for the last extension of the Dubai metro I would not have felt it convenient enough. It is at a point where I can get to most of the places I want to without being exposed to the sun for too long. I assume with each expansion of the Dubai metro it will become more feasible for more people and then the trains might even run more frequent etc.
There is a plan in place for expansion till 2050 and already think the metro is in a good spot.
Given the way bad transit systems often separate the rich from the poor, I guess I predicted Dubai’s metro would be miserable. Guess I was wrong.
Still, mathematically in this case it seems hard to argue against cars. I still prefer transit mostly for ideological reasons.