Weird. That was my first thought when I looked at my most recent Modo invoice. I thought the calculations in my last blog post comparing different modes of travel between Vancouver and Langley were as thorough as I could get.
I even created my own trip calculator in a spreadsheet because the official trip calculator on the Modo website was not working (at least, it wasn’t for me).
What started off as a run-of-the-mill comparison of journey times and costs using different forms of transport has thrown up a new mystery of missing miles. I wasn’t overcharged by Modo. In fact, I think I was undercharged. So no complaints there. However, I’m still uncertain as to why.
I’ve been in touch with Modo, which is still looking into the mystery. I’ll post again when someone gets back.
According to plan
For now, here’s my detailed update on the actual trip to my son’s soccer game and how it compared with the planned trip.
From my previous post, you can see my plan was to leave home in Vancouver on the Saturday at 9.50am and arrive at the field in Willoughby Community Park in Langley by 11.15am for team warm-up.
We left Vancouver 5 minutes early (9.45am) as I wanted to shoot a video on the way.
We arrived at the Skytrain station at 9.56am and got the next train which came in 3 minutes (there’s a Skytrain to King George in Surrey every 6 minutes).
The train wasn’t busy for most of the route and the views were impressive, particularly looking down on the sun soaked Fraser river as we drew into New Westminster.
The Skytrain arrived at Surrey Central a minute or two after 10.30am, which is when our car booking with Modo started.
Finding the car wasn’t difficult. Modo’s dedicated parking stalls in the station car park are well signposted. My son saw them from the stairs before we’d even left the station building.
The car – a white 2023 Toyota Corolla hatchback – was in good condition and clean inside. Of course, I had to gather some footage, so that took a few minutes but we drove off about 10.40am.
Traffic wasn’t too bad, meaning that we arrived at Willoughby Community Park at 11am. I made the mistake of parking before Google had finished giving its directions, thinking we were at our destination.
I didn’t realise that the sports facility is huge, with a sprawling car park. Our field was a long walk away from where we first parked. My son still made it in time for the start of the warm-up at 11.15am as the coach had asked, but no thanks to my Vancouver-minded, car park navigation.
There’s almost always real-life delays when navigating unfamiliar places, but I had cushion-time built into my trip plan so the outward part of the journey worked out very close to what I expected.
Return journey to Vancouver
As I thought, coming back would be more tricky.
I had planned to be leaving Langley at 2pm at the latest at the end of the game (kick-off was scheduled for 12am with two 45 minute halves) and I expected to get back home by 3pm.
The game started late, but after it was all over and done (defeat, alas!) we were on the road by 1.57pm.
Traffic was heavy, but flowing and we got to Surrey Central Skytrain station at 2.27pm.
It took another 10 minutes to park the car, shoot some video, and catch the train back to Vancouver.
The 2.37pm Skytrain from Prince George was busy. Even though Surrey Central is the second station on the route to Vancouver Waterfront. There was standing room only.
After an hour-and-a-half soccer game my son was not too happy about this, but then I showed him the highway report on Google. A crash on BC1W meant that traffic on the highway was moving very slowly. The drive by car would have been around 68 minutes.
He did get a seat for half of the train leg of the journey, although I didn’t.
We arrived at Main Street-Science World Skytrain station in a reliable, half hour and we were on our bikes by 3.15pm. A gentle ride got us home shortly after 3.20pm, which was later than I planned, but close enough, considering I’d been stopping to gather footage. I’d thought we might get away from the soccer field slightly earlier to make it back by 3pm.
In terms of journey time, it’s probably a wash when comparing Modo-only versus Skytrain-and-Modo for this trip. As I’d originally thought, once you factor in the traffic delays on the highway on the return journey and then dropping off the Modo car at its designated spot and the walk back home, there is very little difference in the time it takes.
Leaving Vancouver is easier
From the point of view of peace of mind and enjoyment, it was more pleasant to be watching the city fly by below us from the Skytrain window rather than impatiently waiting for traffic in front of us to unjam itself.
The Skytrain is much more predictable than going by car, but half an hour on the return trip is longer than is comfortable to be standing in a train corridor.
Mystery of missing miles
In terms of cost, it was definitely cheaper to combine transit with car share. Initially, it was even cheaper than I expected, because Modo charged me for half the miles that I actually used.
It’s 17km between Surrey Central and Willoughby Community Park. Modo initially charged me for 17km, not for the full roundtrip of 34km.
I told Modo, who have since corrected my invoice and, I notice, have given me a $15 credit for my trouble (honesty?).
The final fee for the trip was $38.81, which is exactly what I calculated it would be.
If we travelled only $17km I’d have paid $32.17 (less $5.95 plus tax).
I’ve asked Modo what happened to the missing miles. It said they’d get back to me – I’ll report back when that happens.
In the meantime, I know I’ll be doing many more combination journeys in future. This is one area where carsharing really shines.
With over 1,000 vehicles in Vancouver and the Lower Mainland, Victoria, Nanaimo, the Sunshine Coast and Kelowna, it will often make sense to avoid choke points on the road network and ferry crossings by using transit along with a Modo vehicle closer to my journey’s destination.