|
British Mensa Travel Special Interest Group |
|
Home Copyright
© |
Travelling
Green The debate about travelling green may not quite as simple as one might think. I am a member of the committee of our local town twinning association here in Kenilworth and one of my functions is looking into travel arrangements. Kenilworth is a small town close to Coventry, Leamington and the airports at both Coventry and Birmingham. One of our two twin towns is Bourg La Reine, a suburb of Paris about halfway between the city centre and Paris' second airport at Orly. Every second year we visit Bourg and the party from Kenilworth consists of around twenty people. In the past we have hired a coach which is used in France for our day excursion so a 41 seat coach is useful as it saves our French friends hiring a vehicle for a day whilst we are with them. One year, when numbers were small, we took a self-drive minibus over but the consensus of opinion was that for a long journey it was very cramped. So, for our latest visit, I looked into other options which panned out as follows: 1. Long distance coach services - there is a regular service from Coventry to London, Victoria enabling a connection to be made with the Eurolines service to the centre of Paris. 2. The train - either from Coventry with Virgin trains to Euston or from Leamington with Chiltern rail to Marylebone for onward connections with Eurostar to Paris. 3. By plane - there is a daily service from Coventry to Orly. To add to the equation we have a family who, on environmental grounds, will not travel by plane and another elderly gentleman who does not fly anywhere as well as two people who have mobility difficulties. I worked out that, to make the hiring of a coach an economic proposition, we would need to have a minimum of 22 people to stay within the committee's travel budget of £130, as we could balance the hiring cost against the cost of a one day hire in France. As it seemed unlikely that we would reach that number, the pros and cons of public transport were considered. The coach option meant a 6.30am departure from Coventry with a lengthy wait at Victoria for the connection, arriving in Paris late in the evening. The return journey meant a tight connection at Victoria for the Coventry service. If we missed that, we might not all get onto the next service two hours later which would be the last service of the day to Coventry. Alternatively we could book for that service which would probably mean another long wait at Victoria. A return ticket on the Coventry to London train would take us over budget. By using the late morning Marylebone service we could get "bargain returns". However, that would then mean we would have to cross London from Marylebone to Waterloo. Fortunately by Tube this does not require a change, but this exercise is difficult when you have a party of people together with their luggage as well as a wheelchair or two. Hiring a
small coach to take us from Kenilworth to Waterloo and collect us on our
return proved to be too expensive. The plane means a 6.30am check-in at
Coventry but gets us to Orly at 10.30am French time and the return flight
means an 8.30am check in but gets us back at Coventry for 10.30am. In the end, the convenience of the plane won out. It avoided a long day in the more cramped conditions of a coach with potentially lengthy waits at Victoria, an early start and a late evening arrival on the way out. The train lost out because of the problems of getting across London. The plane was a short trip, enabled us to have a programme for the afternoon of our first day and got us back to Kenilworth in time to allow some of the party to be back at work in the afternoon, thus saving them half a day's leave. Whilst we were unable to accommodate the family of four and the elderly gentleman referred to above, going by plane ensured that our two ladies with mobility problems came with us (special arrangements were made at both airports to accommodate them) and two other members decided that they would like to come, as the trip did not require effectively two long days of travelling. In my view, the carbon argument is as follows: had we hired a coach that would have caused an amount of CO2 to be produced as the coach would only run if we hired it. A similar argument would prevail for the minibus option. Therefore, our family of four would not have been doing their bit to save the planet if we had hired a coach rather than using public transport. In my opinion, the train was probably the most eco-friendly means as the train would run whether or not we would be on it and - per kilometre - it is probably the least polluting means of transport. The scheduled coach service would probably have come next. I doubt whether the train or the coach would have used much more power or fuel to accommodate the extra passengers. The plane also would have flown although I accept that the amount of fuel burnt is more directly linked to the amount of passengers carried because a plane needs to climb up to over 20,000 feet even on a short flight. The most convenient method of travel would probably have been the train if we could have avoided changing stations in London. It would have combined a high level of comfort with a regular headway giving us the option of picking travel times to suit ourselves and our budget. The opening up of the new St. Pancras terminal will help in so far as it is very close to Euston. However, in an age when it is possible to travel from London to many parts of France, Germany and the Benelux countries (and quite soon to Spain) by high speed train without the need to change stations, why are we in Britain unable to get our act together and have direct services from our major conurbations into St. Pancras? First
published in VISA issue 74 (Aug 2007) |