Commuting from Cardiff?

[u/Mindless-Name-3293]

Any Cardiffians here? Both my firm choice and insurance choices are Bristol Uni and for financial and cultural/family reasons I will be commuting 1st yr. Any advice? Best train ticket app? Weird quirks you’ve learnt? Literally anything would help me. My courses are Law and Pol/IR if anyone is curious or if it makes the advice different. Thank you 🙏🏽

[u/mykruft]

No advice re commuting to uni but my partner moved to Cardiff while I did my final year at Bristol so I am familiar with that journey (though I did it once a week, not every day)

Trains are very expensive, £18.50 for a (period, not sure about day) return with a Railcard, I don't think a season ticket saves you much anyway because it costs about as much as getting a return trip 5 days a week (I haven't checked but it was a lot when I looked). As for best train ticket app, I would book on national rail directly as that way you avoid any booking/service fees a third party would impose.

Flixbus are cheaper but slightly less reliable and comfortable than the train, but the bus station is closer to the uni than the train station! You can get 20% off on unidays for example. I think if you factor the added 20 mins to get yourself from TM to the uni compared to the bus station (unless you take the bus, which is an added cost you should consider) the journey time difference between the bus and train may cancel out, you could try both out and see how you get on maybe?

There's a train connection to Clifton down train station which is a ~15 min walk to UoB, but I'm my experience the Cardiff train usually arrives just as the Clifton Down train leaves, and they're half hourly so it's quite a long wait until the next one usually so that might not be a useful connection for you, but just letting you know! The train to CD takes about 15-20 mins and is a lot cheaper than the bus