You’ve landed, you’ve got a hotel two cities over, and now you have to actually get there. The train station is cheap and frequent. A private car costs more but pulls up outside the door. Both are reasonable choices, and the right one depends less on price than on what your day actually looks like: how much luggage you’re hauling, what time you arrive, and whether the route has a fast rail line or not.
Here’s how to think it through without overthinking it.
compare door to door, not station to station
Train timetables lie a little. A high-speed service between Paris and Lyon takes about two hours, but that’s platform to platform. Your real journey starts the moment you leave wherever you are and ends when you drop your bags at the next address. Add the taxi to the departure station, the wait, the walk to the platform with a suitcase, then the same thing in reverse at the other end, and a “two hour” trip can eat four hours of your day.
A private transfer collapses all of that. The driver picks you up at your door and drops you at the next one. No connections, no platform changes, no lugging bags up a staircase because the lift is out. For routes where the stations sit far from where you’re actually going, the car often wins on total time even when the train looks faster on paper.
where the train usually wins
Some corridors are built for rail and it shows. If two city centres are linked by a genuine high-speed line and your start and end points are both near the stations, the train is hard to beat.
- Tokyo to Osaka on the Shinkansen, where trains leave every few minutes and run dead on time.
- Madrid to Barcelona, with frequent AVE departures and stations close to the centre.
- London to Paris by Eurostar, which skips airport-style hassle for a city-centre arrival.
- Cologne to Frankfurt, a short fast hop where driving saves you nothing.
On these, a car mostly makes sense if you have heavy or awkward luggage, you’re travelling with small kids, or you’re arriving at an hour when trains have stopped running.
where a private car usually wins
The car earns its keep when the rail option gets complicated. Think of a route with no direct line, where the “train” is really two trains and a bus with a 40-minute connection in between. Or a region where stations are nowhere near your hotel. Or a late flight that lands after the last departure.
A few situations where booking a driver tends to pay off:
- You’re carrying a lot. Two big suitcases plus carry-ons and a stroller is miserable on a crowded train.
- You’re arriving late or leaving very early, outside normal rail hours.
- You’re a group of three or four, where splitting one car cost can rival three or four train tickets.
- The route involves changes, and a missed connection means a long wait or a stranded evening.
- You want a fixed price agreed before you travel, with no surge pricing and no metered surprises.
With GetPrivateRide the price is fixed when you book, the driver speaks English, and your ride is tracked against your flight, so a delayed landing doesn’t mean a lost booking. If plans change, you can cancel online on 99% of rides.
the things people forget to check
Before you commit either way, run through a quick list. It takes two minutes and saves the awkward moment of standing on a curb with your bags.
- Last departure time. Trains stop earlier than you’d guess, especially on regional routes and Sundays.
- Where the station actually is. Some “city” stations sit well outside the centre, which changes your real travel time.
- Luggage rules. A few high-speed services now charge for or limit large bags.
- Strikes and engineering works. European rail in particular can shut down with little notice.
- What happens if your flight is late. A pre-booked car that tracks your flight waits for you. A train ticket does not.
a simple way to decide
If both cities have central stations on a fast line, you’re travelling light, and it’s daytime, take the train and enjoy the legroom. If you’re loaded with luggage, arriving at an odd hour, moving as a group, or facing a messy connection, book the car and skip the friction.
And there’s no rule that says you must pick one for the whole trip. Plenty of travellers take the train between two big hubs, then book a private transfer for the airport run or the final leg into a town the railway never reaches. Match the tool to the leg, and most journeys sort themselves out.
When the car is the right call, you can book your transfer in advance on the GetPrivateRide platform and have a driver waiting, door to door, in over 130 countries.
