A savvy commuter is set to save almost £270 on his journeys to and from work this year after ditching public transport in favour of private cabs.
Tom Church, 28, is already £100 better off in five months after swapping his Oyster card for private hire in the form of a ride-sharing travel app on his phone.
Mr Church uses ViaVan, a ride-hailing app with similar functionality to Uber or Lyft.
The business says it can offer users a good deal by matching them with a car or van already headed in the direction they want to travel.
Tom Church, 28, from Crouch Endstands to save nearly £270 per year after ditching public transport for a ride-sharing app called ViaVan
Originally based in Berlin and Amsterdam, ViaVan launched in London this April in collaboration with Merecedes-Benz, and currently only functions in the centre of the capital in Zones 1 and Zone 2.
But Mr Church, from Crouch End, believes any limitations are outweighed by the cost benefits.
He said: ‘I bought the commuter pass which meant that sometimes – not always – you pick up an extra passenger on the way.
‘Once or twice this detour has been a bit longer than normal, maybe an extra five minutes. But by and large it’s always worked fine.’
ViaVan’s ‘commuter pass’ entitles users to travel between 6am and 9pm, whereas a TfL travelcard is valid all day. But the ride-sharing option works out cheaper.
The ViaVan smartphone app offers bulk-purchase options which work out cheaper than using a TfL travelcard under some circumstances
Users can select between a shared journey, which is cheaper but may include collecting other passengers, and a private ride
A travelcard for rides on the tube or bus between the same zones costs £131 a month but a commuter pass on the car sharing app costs £109 a month.
That £22 monthly saving will add up to £264 over the course of a year.
Mr Church, who runs latestdeals.co.uk and is calling on London Mayor Sadiq Khan to review travel fares in the city – currently frozen until 2020 – added that public transport was ‘too darn expensive’.
He said: ‘It shows how ridiculous public transport prices have become. Now I get picked up almost at my door.
‘I don’t have to worry about not getting a seat. I enjoy a peaceful ride and get dropped off by my work.’
He said ‘saving money’ was the best thing about the app, calling it a ‘handy hack’ to free up cash to spend on other things.
According to a 2016 poll of 4,200 UK workers by website Total Jobs, commuters in the capital will spend just over £2,400 each year on their travel to and from work.
The website calculated that based on a working lifetime of 47 years from 18 to 65, that works out at £113,536 per London commuter.
On that basis, Mr Church’s decision to use the app over public transport would save him £11,500 over a lifetime.
This April bargain-hunter Mr Church bought himself a car just to make a return trip from London to Bristol to prove it was cheaper than taking the train.
The entrepreneur said wanted to visit a friend but was put off by the cost of an anytime return ticket, which can cost up to £218.10.
So he bought a second-hand car online for £80. After paying road tax, insurance and petrol, his total costs still came to just £206.81 – an £11 saving on the train.