Let’s Talk About A Dirty Little Habit…

Let’s talk about that dirty little car and/or bus habit of yours and the real costs you are incurring weekly.

The Scooter Central Team have done a comparison schedule between the real costs of your annual commute to work via Scooter, Car or Bus.  We’ve chosen the Piaggio Fly 150 which is a mid-range good quality 150cc Scooter, a Toyota Corolla and a combination of a Keo ride and B Line bus to get from the Northern Beaches into Sydney CBD.  The cost of the scooter we used was $4390 ride away, the cost of the car was $28,477 and we divided these over 5 years to come up with our annual cost of ownership of the vehicles.  We added in the ongoing registrations, insurance, servicing, petrol, sundries like tolls and parking and even added safety equipment for a scooter including the cost of a helmet, protective jacket and gloves.

If you travel from the Northern Beaches to the Sydney CBD daily including parking, owning and riding, a scooter will cost you $62.43 per week vs a car which will set you back $319.54 per week.  Taking a Keo ride to and from the bus stop and the bus to the CBD will set you back $103.60 per week.  You are looking at a whopping 80% savings by taking a scooter instead of a car and 40% savings by taking a scooter instead of the bus.

We know that 67% of people living on the Northern Beaches also work on the Northern Beaches so we also left off the commute over the Sydney Harbour Bridge or through the Harbour Tunnel and compared costs of travel within the Northern Beaches.  The scooter came down in weekly cost to $55.50 per week to own and run, the car came down to $234.15 and the bus remained at $103.60 per week.  Owning and riding a scooter daily is 75% cheaper than owning and driving a car and 48% cheaper than riding the bus and Keo daily.  That is counting only 1 trip to and from a destination per day by bus.  The scooter or car both give you more flexibility to travel any time any day.  The single biggest mistake a commuter could be making is driving their car to a bus stop and paying for parking there and then taking the bus to and from their destination.  You really don’t want to know what that cost total would be (about $400) per week.

We did not factor in that most people finance their vehicles, further adding to cost proportionately.   Reducing kilometres travelled annually will decrease the running costs considerably.   We also did not allow for more bus trips or Uber, Keo or Taxi rides with our transport comparison.  If you make more than one return trip per day anywhere then your costs will exceed the estimated bus/Keo ride quite quickly.

Anyone looking to keep their personal or family budget in check should be considering the scooter alternative.  Having your own personal transportation and a clean environment is imperative these days.  Scooters provide and inexpensive, versatile, safe way to travel in 2020.