One of the costs of vehicle ownership. This 1961 EK Holden is left to rust on a property in Benambra, Victoria, Australia

Compared to other popular modes of passenger transportation, especially buses, the automobile is relatively uneconomic. There are a number of reasons for this: This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

• The typical private car spends most of its lifetime idle and depreciation is a significant proportion of the total cost.
• Compared to bulk-carrying vehicles such as airplanes, buses and trains, individual vehicles have worse economies of scale.
• Capacity utilisation is low. The average occupancy of automobiles is below 1.5 passengers in most parts of the world. Measures such as High-occupancy vehicle lanes try to address this issue.

According to the RAC the average cost of running a new car in the UK is GBP 5,000 (US$ 9,000) per year, or roughly 1/3 of the average net wage, a situation reflected in most other Western nations. Nevertheless demand for automobiles remains high and inelastic, suggesting that its advantages, such as on-demand and door-to-door travel, are highly prized and not easily susbtituted by cheaper alternative modes of transport. Declining-balance depreciation of a $50,000 asset with $6,500 salvage value over 20 years. ... This article refers to the tool of travel. ... This article is about the form of transport. ... This article is about trains in rail transport. ... ... A permanent, separated high-occupancy vehicle lane on I-91 in Connecticut In transportation engineering and transportation planning, a high-occupancy vehicle lane (or HOV lane) is a lane for vehicles with a driver and one or more passengers. ... Categories: Automobile stubs | Companies traded on the LSE ... A salary is a form of periodic payment from an employer to an employee, which is specified in an employment contract. ... In economics, elasticity is the ratio of the incremental percentage change in one variable with respect to an incremental percentage change in another variable. ... This article is in need of attention. ...

The costs of running a car can be broken down as follows (in approximate order of cost):

• Depreciation
• Fuel (including fuel tax)
• Repairs
• Maintenance
• Insurance
• Parking
• Tire replacement
• Vehicle tax
• Financing
• Roadworthiness Tests
• Registration
• Accessories
• Opportunity cost

Despite rising oil prices the real cost of car travel has dropped steadily over the past five decades, in part due to better manufacturing technologies, and in part due to engines becoming more fuel-efficient. Declining-balance depreciation of a $50,000 asset with $6,500 salvage value over 20 years. ... A fuel tax (also known as a petrol tax, gasoline tax, gas tax or fuel duty) is a sales tax imposed on the sale of fuel. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ... Underground parking garage at the University of Minnesota. ... Firestone tire A tire or tyre (see spelling differences) is a device covering the circumference of a wheel. ... In the United Kingdom, Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) (often known as road tax) is an annual tax on the use of motor vehicles on the public roads. ... In finance, interest has three general definitions. ... MOT test, or just MOT (pronounced by spelling out the letters) is a mandatory annual test of safety and roadworthiness aspects of vehicles over a certain age in the United Kingdom. ... // A vehicle registration plate, usually called license plate or number plate (often referred to simply as a plate, or colloquially tag) is a small metal or plastic plate attached to a motor vehicle for official identification purposes. ... Opportunity cost is a term used in economics to mean the cost of something in terms of an opportunity forgone (and the benefits that could be received from that opportunity), or the most valuable forgone alternative. ...

As opposed to public transport, the automobile is characterised by high fixed costs and low variable costs, making it most attractive for frequent travellers such as commuters, and least attractive for infrequent and/or flexible travellers, such as people who use their car for weekend trips only. This is the main reason why public transport companies try to increase competitiveness in the commuter market by raising fixed costs/ reducing variable costs to the consumer in the form of season tickets. Carsharing significantly lowers fixed costs, hence it tends to be more popular with light users than commuters. Skytrain Bangkok. ... Fixed costs are gay! There i said it, happymnmbbn,b ... Variable costs or direct costs are expenses that change in direct proportion to the activity of a business. ... Commuting is the process of travelling from a place of residence to a place of work. ... Carsharing is a system where a fleet of cars (or other vehicles) is owned and operated/overseen by a company, public agency, cooperative, ad hoc grouping, or even a single individual, and made available for use by members of the carshare group in a wide variety of ways. ...

Since automobiles demand a high land use, they become increasingly uneconomic with higher population densities. This can either manifest itself in higher costs of driving in densely populated areas (Parking fees and road pricing), or in the absence of a price mechanism, in an shortage in the form of traffic jams. Public transport, by comparison, becomes increasingly uneconomic with lower population densities. Hence cars tend to dominate in rural and suburban environments, while only fulfilling a secondary role in city center transport. Land use is the pattern of construction and activity land is used for. ... Road pricing is a generic term for charging for the use of roads using direct methods, charging the users of a specific section of the road network for its use. ... A price mechanism or market-based method is any of a wide variety of ways to match up offers and requests that market players bid and ask: a bid is an offer to pay a fixed amount that is held open for a period of time an ask is an... Economic shortage is a term describing a disparity between the amount demanded for a product or service and the amount supplied in a market. ... Traffic jams are common in heavily populated areas. ...