When travelling long, international distances within Europe, passengers usually have multiple options: a decent rail option (especially in Western Europe), one or more flights, or taking the family car.

Having lived in many different countries, it’s struck me over the last six years of living in central France — before and since Covid struck — just how different the calculations are between plane, train, or automobile here compared with elsewhere. 

Let’s compare a trip from my home, roughly two hours from Lyon airport, to the UK, where only London is served nonstop. 

TGV: Lyon-Lille-London

Planning a train trip on this route is an instructive yet frustrating lesson in how the French rail network is overly concentrated on Paris (and, to be fair, the British network on London).

The total journey from Lyon to London takes between 6-7 hours, which in theory is firmly in my rail-preferred journey length. 5-6 of those hours are on the TGV and Eurostar, where I can sit down comfortably and get a lot of work done. However, that timing requires not connecting in Paris, where the TGV-Eurostar connection requires taking the Paris metro between the southern terminus Gare de Lyon and the northern terminus Gare du Nord. This is a dealbreaker with a suitcase, so the only other option is the few trains a day that travel between Lyon and Lille-Europe station, from where connections to the Eurostar (in other words, border facilities) are possible, although even this connection takes up a good 1-2 hours of unproductive time.

Of course, that doesn’t take into account the fact that I have to get to one of the Lyon rail stations, for which I have to leave roughly 2-3 hours — more if, as with some tickets, my connection from regional rail to TGV is not protected in the event of delay to the first train. At best scheduling, the train takes 8 hours, at worst 10.

But, fundamentally, this scheduling is rife with uncertainty because of the need for two connections between three rail operators — just to get to London.

If, say, my regional train is delayed and I miss the TGV, I may have to purchase an entirely new set of tickets for the rest of my journey. In theory, I may not: even European rail expert Mark Smith of Seat61.com needs about six pages to explain the issues of CIV, HOTNAT and AJC, but suffice it to say that it is incredibly complex to deal with.

This uncertainty is often a dealbreaker for a time-critical trip, because of these very weak connection protections across European rail operators, especially if booking via one of the decent trip search engines like Trainline. Onward connections from London St Pancras are good only via that station or the adjacent King’s Cross, which serve a very limited set of destinations, and also run into the connections problem above.

The trip is also expensive: booking a week out, a one-way fare from Lyon to London is between 200-300 EUR and a month out it is only 15-20 EUR less than that. 

Air: Lyon to Heathrow, Luton or Gatwick

With a single flight to London, the plane is in many ways the easiest option, but the overall journey is only slightly faster than the train.

I would usually plan two hours to drive to the airport (three to four if taking the train and the airport tram), two hours at the airport, two hours for the flight and arrivals, and two hours to then get where I’m going, so eight hours. That’s if everything runs on time, of course.

I then have to take the train into London from whichever airport I arrive into, adding another hour — a total of nine at a minimum.

The thing about the plane, though, is that almost none of this time is productive time: only perhaps 60-90 minutes in departures where I might be able to sit down with my laptop, and even then there is a dearth of comfortable and efficient places to do so. There are also only a half-dozen flights a day, of which half depart at hours so unsociably early that I would likely need to overnight at the hotel rather than drive to the airport at 0300 to catch an 0700 flight.

Pricing can be cheap but is variable: economy one-way ranges from 61-404 EUR one week out and 53-281 EUR a month out. I then use around 40 EUR of fuel and tolls to get to the airport, with airport parking being around 70 EUR a week, or the train plus tram to the airport is around 50 EUR.

Car: French autoroutes and the Channel Tunnel

France has an excellent network of autoroute motorways, speed limit 130km/h or roughly 80 mph, and route nationale expressways, limit of 110km/h or roughly 70 mph.

In the 8-9 hours it takes to take the train or plane, I can be in Calais waiting to drive onto the Le Shuttle auto train, even with a stop for lunch and fuel en route. The boarding, crossing and disembarkation takes around 60-90 minutes all told, around half of which can be used as productive time. Rarely if ever is there any congestion on the route, which means I can take calls over my car’s Bluetooth system, catch up with podcasts, or listen to audiobooks.

On the other side of the Channel, it take a couple of hours into London on the UK’s choked and crumbling road infrastructure, which is perhaps the biggest argument against taking the car.

Cost-wise, the tunnel costs around 100-200EUR, plus around 150 EUR of fuel and autoroute tolls on a one-way trip, and the cost of mileage depreciation for about 800 km. I’ll also usually spend about 50-100 EUR on a hotel just south of Calais on the way north to break the journey.

Spoilers and dealbreakers

Cost-wise, the trip itself can come out to be roughly equivalent — usually not to the point of making a major difference in my decisions. 

The major pricing influence is in favour of the tunnel and driving, because I then have my own car with me. The cost of renting a vehicle spiked during the pandemic and has yet to settle down to pre-Covid levels, not least because of the computer chip shortage affecting automobile production. Renting an Economy-sized car (Volkswagen Polo or similar hatchback) from a name-brand company at London Heathrow will today set you back around 200 GBP (230 EUR) a week booking well in advance.

Flexibility and resilience, though, is the major point in the car’s favour. There are multiple road options if one has a severe delay. Moreover, Eurotunnel/Le Shuttle has never yet failed to offer me a place on the very next train regardless of when I turn up at their check-in, which is a real boon: I can book a mid-morning ticket in case of traffic jams, but if I arrive two hours in advance I’ve driven straight through from check-in through border control and onto the train in under twenty minutes. (The trip has not always been so smooth, but by and large it’s more so than either train or plane.)

Emissions-wise, the train is by far the lowest impact, while the plane versus the car (an efficient French diesel suitable for London’s ULEZ emissions zone) depends on how many people are carried. Increasingly, this is becoming a factor in my own decision-making, but the connections uncertainty from the train is a huge detractor here.

Yet with my home in central France, regular business in the UK and family there too, I travel backwards and forwards often. Since the uncertainties and complexities of the Covid pandemic that started three years ago, I find myself driving rather than flying or taking the train, more often than not. It’s simpler, less stressful, and if things go wrong it’s easier to get back on track.

Related Articles:

• Eurotunnel LeShuttle needs to do more to keep passengers informed
• British Airways’ LHR-NCL domestic flight seems hard to justify
• Time and Space: UK first class air transport versus the train
• Exploring Italian intermodality with Lufthansa and ITA
• The French Connection: First Class onboard TGV
• France’s speedy, free TGV wifi outperforms expectations

Featured image credited to John Walton