Tolls, Fuel and Saving Travel Days

[Delfy]

Trying something new because of Schengen travel rules.

We have a Burstner Travel Van 2008, 6.6 m and want to drive from Calais to Perpignan as quickly as possible to save days, by using tolls and finding cheapest fuel en route.

None of the internet route planners take into account the average fuel consumption of a motorhome vehicle only the size, so we are in class 2.

Grateful for any advice please.

[malc d]

16 minutes ago, Delfy said:

Trying something new because of Schengen travel rules.

We have a Burstner Travel Van 2008, 6.6 m and want to drive from Calais to Perpignan as quickly as possible to save days, by using tolls and finding cheapest fuel en route.

None of the internet route planners take into account the average fuel consumption of a motorhome vehicle only the size, so we are in class 2.

Grateful for any advice please.

If your main aim is to save on ' time in France ' you could cross to Ouistreham instead of Calais.

Ferry would cost more but it could save you a day or so.

[laimeduck]

Try Mappy maps (en.mappy.com)

Under "options" there is a range of vehicle types and you can adjust cost of fuel to suit your vehicle.

It also gives the cost of tolls. See screenshot

Jeremy

OOOeerr! .... screenshot is distorted and reversed? But not that way on my android?

[laimeduck]

[Derek Uzzell]

I would have thought that choosing the the ViaMichelin options of a diesel-fuelled luxury car should be 'near enough' for a 6-metre motorhome (and toll charges should be the same).

https://www.viamichelin.co.uk/web/Routes

Deliberately exploiting autoroutes will still mean an overall distance of 700 to 750 miles and an estimated journey time of some 11 hours - so probably 2 days of hardish driving and 2 fuel stops on the way.

Logically, if saving time in France is the primary objective, fuelling should be carried out at autoroute service stations (and hang the expense) and the (single?) overnight stop should also involve bedding down on an autoroute service station's vehicle park.

(Ouistreham to Perpignan is 600 to 650 miles. The trip offers cost savings, but the100 miles distance-reduction is unlikely to be significant Schengen-wise.)

[laimeduck]

Derek .....I really don't think Via michelin is as powerful a planner as Mappy. 

You can put your own vehicle parameters into mappy and get a tailor made plan. (See photos) ...lots of vehicle types and you can put in your own fuel custom consumption .

I use both via michelin and mappy and for France they are far superior in terms of map quality and parameters than Google maps. (Not quite as easy to use though I don't think?)

Jeremy

[Klyne]

Is the height of your van 3 metres or under?  If you are over 3 metres you will go up a class for autoroute charging. 

David

[teccer1234]

my hymer is 3.2mt high and always use the motorways down to Spain and always class 2.

[Derek Uzzell]

As stated in the original posting, Delfy's motorhome is a 2008 Burstner Travel Van.

The 2008 Travel Van range comprised three variants - t-570G, t-571G or t-620G and the posting's quoted length of 6.6m indicates that Delfy owns a t-620G. Details of this model can be found here

https://www.outandaboutlive.co.uk/motorhomes/buyers-guide/motorhomes/details/620-g/602

and the height is given as 2.75m, which (as Delfy said) makes the vehicle eligible for autoroute Class 2.

This 2015 link may be useful

https://www.bipandgo.com/en/news/toll-payment-for-camping-cars-in-france

and it should be apparent from the statement

Most of the camping cars belong to the class 2: vehicles with a height between 2 and 3 meters and a total weight less than 3.5 tonnes. 

that a height of 3.0m or higher SHOULD make the motorhome ineligible for Class 2.

On UK forums over the years the 'correct' autoroute Class for motorhomes has been asked (and argued) about time after time. This 2018 thread might help

https://forums.outandaboutlive.co.uk/topic/42748-french-motorway-toll-classification/

 

[teccer1234]

11 hours ago, teccer1234 said:

my hymer is 3.2mt high and always use the motorways down to Spain and always class 2.

plus 4.5 t

so I suppose I've been lucky for the last 20 odd years

[Derek Uzzell]

Yes.

A double whammy - over-height and over-weight...

If you want to go to the horse's mouth, these French links go into detail 

https://www.lemondeducampingcar.fr/pratique/reglementation/page-quelle-catgorie-de-tarifs-sur-lautoroute-pour-votre-camping-car/59629

https://www.lemondeducampingcar.fr/pratique/reglementation/autoroute-page-comment-ragir-quand-lautomate-se-trompe/59963#:~:text=Il arrive que l'automate estiment mal la hauteur du,le calcul de la hauteur.

[Brian Kirby]

On 12/29/2022 at 10:35 AM, Delfy said:

Trying something new because of Schengen travel rules.

We have a Burstner Travel Van 2008, 6.6 m and want to drive from Calais to Perpignan as quickly as possible to save days, by using tolls and finding cheapest fuel en route.

None of the internet route planners take into account the average fuel consumption of a motorhome vehicle only the size, so we are in class 2.

Grateful for any advice please.

Interesting question, so, some food for thought!  The following is the result of using Microsoft Autoroute 2013, so some road numbers may have changed.  But the start time and the finish point (Pont Lazarre Escarguet, Perpignan) are the same in all three of the following scenarios, for constancy.

First, some necessary assumptions.

1     We are not allowed to import animal products (meat, eggs, milk) into the EU, so you will need to make a supermarket stop after arrival in Calais to buy these items, where I assume you will also refuel your van.

2     Refuelling is at supermarkets, to benefit from their lower prices.

3     I assume you will overnight at the Calais municipal campsite before the above shopping trip, meaning that, in the three following scenarios, you will commence your journey from the filling station, at 10:50.

4     I also assume you will cease travel at about 18:00 each day, as below, and will leave overnight stops at 09:30.  All fuel, lunch, and intermediate overnight stops as in the following scenarios.

5     That the van has a fuel tank capacity of 90 litres, consumption of 26 mpg, and will be refilled when the tank is half empty.

Campsites and filling stations mentioned have been checked, and are all current but, in the absence of proposed travel dates, campsite opening/closing dates/times have not been checked - but can be verified on the ACSI “Eurocampings” website.

Scenario 1, using (mainly toll) autoroutes for speed.  Shortest and fastest.

From Calais A26 (toll) to Arras, A1 (toll) Arras to Roissy, A3 (non-toll) to Paris Boulevard Peripherique at Bagnolet, Peripherique (non-toll) Bagnolet to Gentilly, A6 (non-toll) Gentilly to Pontheverard, A10 (toll) to Orleans, A71 (toll) to Clermont-Ferrand, A75 (non-toll) to Beziers, A9 (toll) to Sigean (final fuel fill) and D6009 Sigean to Salses le Chateau (10 miles / 13 minutes north of Perpignan), arriving at 18:00.

Total distance to Perpignan 720 miles.  Total driving time 12 hours 55 minutes.  Overnight stop at municipal campsite Bourges, arriving 18:00.  First refuelling stop Intermarche Artenay, after 249 miles.  Second ditto at Carrefour Issoire, after 473 miles.  1 lunch/comfort break between 12:00 and 13:00.

Scenario 2, avoiding toll roads.  1 hour 30 minutes slower overall, and 20 miles longer to Perpignan, consequently requiring some travel on a third day.

From Calais A16 (non-toll) to Boulogne, N416/D901 to Abbeville, A28 (non-toll) to Junc 10 (Les Hayons), D915 Lierville, D54/D43/D14/N14 to Cergy-Pontoise, A15 (non-toll) to junc 7, N184 to St German-en-Laye, N13/N186 to Rocquencourt, A12 (non-toll) to Bois-d’Arcy, N12/A86 (non-toll) to Rungis (S Paris), A6 (non-toll) to St German-sur-Ecole, D637/D607/D2007/D907 to Rognon, A77 (non-toll)/N7/D907/D2009 to Clermont-Ferrand, A75 to Beziers, D612/D64/D609 to Coursan, D6009 to Sigean and then as Scenario 1 above, but terminating near Ceyras, (where you should arrive about 18:00, .  (Possibly Onlycamp les Vailhes (647 miles), on Lac de Salagou - just off the A75 junction 54, where you should arrive 18:10.)  This leaves 85 miles (1 hour 30 minutes)  to Perpignan, to complete on day 3.

Total distance to Perpignan 739 miles,  Total driving time 15 hours 30 minutes.

Overnight stop at Camping de la Foret at Montargis, arriving 18:20.  First refuelling stop Carrefour Market Nemours, after 256 miles.  Second ditto at Intermarche St Flour after 527 miles.  Meal/comfort  breaks as scenario 1.

Scenario 3, avoiding toll roads and Paris.  As scenario 2, 1 hour 30 minutes slower overall, and 22 miles longer, to Perpignan, consequently also requiring some travel on a third day.

From Calais A16 (toll-free) to Boulogne, N416/D901 to Abbeville, A28 (non-toll) to Rouen, D6015 to Igoville and Incarville, A154 (non-toll)/N154 to Junc 10 (s.p. Prey), D52E/D52 to Marcilly-sur-Eure, D143 to St Georges-Motel, D161/D928/D156/N154 by-passing Dreux and continue on N154/N2154 to Ymonville, N2154/N154/D954/D2154 to Artenay, D2020 to Saran, D2060/D952/D2007/D907to Cosne-Cours-sur-Loire, A77 (non-toll)/N7/D907 to Moulins, N79/D2009 to Clermont-Ferrand and A71.  Then A71 (non-toll) to Beziers.  From Beziers as Scenario 2 above including termination at Onlycamp les Vailhes (650 miles) where you should arrive at 18:27.  As 2 above, this leaves 85 miles (1 hour 30 minutes) to Perpignan, to complete on day 3.

Total distance to Perpignan 741 miles.  Total driving time 15 hours 38 minutes.  Suggested overnight stop at Camping les Paturages, at Checy (SE of Orleans - 269 miles), arriving 18:20.  First refuelling stop E Leclerc at Fleury-les-Aubrais (just north of Orleans) at 260 miles.  Second ditto Intermarche at Massiac (just off A75 junc 23), after 510 miles.  Meal/comfort  breaks as scenario 1 above. 

Obviously, these are not the only possible routes.  The question which then arises is whether the quickest journey time from Calais to Perpignan, gaining just one and a half hours over 700+ miles each way, brings sufficient advantage to warrant its increased cost.  The slightly shorter non-toll route in scenario 2 involves a close, and slightly “fiddly”, by-pass of Paris which seems to me to increase the risk of traffic hold ups with little other advantage.  Hence, scenario 3 via (but by-passing) Rouen and, for a Euro 5 or later vehicle, also the Rouen LEZ.

The above timings are all as calculated by Autoroute with average driving speeds set to their lowest settings.  I find this gives a reasonable approximation to what is generally achievable in practice.

Do bear in mind that time spent in Schengen is counted from (and includes) the day on which you arrive (in this case at Calais) to (and includes) the day on which you leave (I assume also from Calais).  So, for the purposes of the 90 days within any 180 days Schengen limit, the duration/length of your journeys to/from your eventual destination will make no difference whatever to the time you will be recorded as having spent in Schengen.  Your total gain will be an extra 3 hours in Perpignan over the duration of your entire visit.

[ColinM50]

Brian, excellent route planning but can you indicate peage costs, Class 2? 

[laimeduck]

Brian - this is interesting as I have being doing very similar calculations for our trip in a week's time, down to the Spanish border near Perpignan.

Delfy has not said when he wants to do his trip and this will make all the difference to the journey.
Your suggested campsites are to my knowledge not available in the winter months.

For my trip starting January 9th, there are hardly any ACSI campsites open en-route. (Only 2 on my route!) There are precious few Camping car park sites either, and I am loath to commit to a Camping car park that may or may not have EHU working (Too many reviews say it's hit and miss). I have also identified one or two sites apparently open on Archies camping which will be used as fall backs if necessary.

As I have intimated on other threads, we are going to need a guaranteed EHU when we stop so we can have heat, so that rather dictates our route. (and I do not want to go anywhere near Paris!)

Our route will go down from Calais on the autoroute nearly to Rouen. (cost about £7.40 in toll but saves about 45 mins and about £3 in fuel). 
Then cross country to Les Andelys. (To avoid the LEZ)
From there we will head down to Sully sur Loire, where an ACSI site is open. Total driving distance 296 miles, time 6 hrs 20 mins excluding stops. After the toll from Calais to Rouen we will be toll free.
We arrive in France at 09.00, and have to get to Sully sur Loire before 19.00, a total of 10 hrs, so obviously quite possible.

The next day we will drop south via Sancerre, Nevers, Moulins, to Clermont Ferrand and then south on the A75 towards Millau and then Clermont-L-Herault to the next ACSI site open near Le Bosc. A total of 350 miles, and just over 6 hrs 20 mins - again with no stops - again quite possible to maintain a good average mph - mainly dual carriageways - albeit weather dependent.
From Clermont-L-Herault to Perpignan is straightforward - about 1.5 to 2 hrs.

Postscript - since I started writing this you edited your post, so there is some crossover of points!

Jeremy

[laimeduck]

12 minutes ago, ColinM50 said:

Brian, excellent route planning but can you indicate peage costs, Class 2? 

Put the route into Mappy ( see my earlier post) or Via Michelin and it will give you Peage costs

[Derek Uzzell]

Remember that autoroute toll charges will rise significantly on 1 February 2023.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-12-02/france-to-raise-toll-road-fees-boost-frequent-driver-rebates

Daphne (Delfy) hasn't said whether she will be the sole driver, or if the driving will be shared. Also (based on an earlier thread) there's Daphne's aversion to high bridges that might need to be considered when planning the quickest route.

I don't think there's much difficulty identifying a mostly-autoroutes Calais-to-Perpignan route, nor in calculating the toll charges. Daphne will know her motorhome's fuel consumption and the current cost of diesel fuel in France is available on-line. (Obviously, the harder the motorhome is driven, the higher its fuel consumption will be.)

The current cheapest price for diesel-fuel (B7) in France is around €1.75 per litre, and this website might be helpful 

https://plein-moins-cher.fr/en/carte-carburants-prix-stations-gazole-b7.html

If the objective is for the trip to be, literally, "as quickly as possible", comfort (and cheap fuel) must be forgotten. Just hammer down the autoroutes, make 'pit stops' only when essential, eat while the motorhome is being driven, etc. However - as Brian has emphasised above - the Schengen 'total' will be calculated from when France was entered to when the Schengen area was exited. So the time spent reaching Perpignan is irrelevant where Schengen 'savings' are concerned - all a really fast Calais-to-Perpignan trip will achieve is an earlier arrival at Perpignan.

(Years ago an adventurous friend decided to drive solo from Ouistreham to a property he owned near Lisbon. The distance was about 1100 miles, the vehicle was a large Mercedes diesel-fuelled estate-car and motorways were used as much as possible. He managed to complete the journey in 24 hours, took two days to recover. and swore he would never repeat the exercise.)

[Brian Kirby]

17 hours ago, laimeduck said:

...........................................For my trip starting January 9th, there are hardly any ACSI campsites open en-route. (Only 2 on my route!) ....................................................

Postscript - since I started writing this you edited your post, so there is some crossover of points!

Jeremy

Sorry about the edit, Jeremy.  I realised there was a necessary correction!

Re the above, I think the problem is that the ACSI website does not take account of the site opening times.  Whether this is a problem at present as they don't yet have confirmation of dates from the sites, I know not, but I do know (from the ACSI Card book) that the Bien Assise at Guines opens on 7 April 23, yet still appears on the "Eurocampings" website as available to visit on 9-10 January 23 - with about 2,300 other sites!  GIGO?

Good luck with your trip.  BTW, if you filter for sites with heated sanitary facilities you get a mere 66 sites in France, mainly down the East side and into the South, but nothing whatever in the North and West.  My impression is that a number of permanently open sites have restricted their opening times, no doubt due to the impacts of Covid and high energy costs, set against an expectation of dwindling numbers of winter visitors.

[mtravel]

ACSI (either book or web)...

They list roughly 10,000 sites around Europe while the number is 30,000+.

In winter I traveled France at least 15 times. From East to West, South to North.

Always used Archiecampings filtered by opening dates (excel straightfoward op). Then (just to be sure) crosschecked by mail to site contact. Archie's precision around 95% (even this year in Spain).

I am quite sure that French sites open 365 are not so rare. Never found a site without heated sanitary facilities.

Max

p.s. Archiecampings site had been closed since mid 2022.

For few bucks you can download his App (either Android or IOS).

[derek500]

The trouble with using timings on  most apps, is they assume you're driving at the speed limit.   I dread to think how my mpg will plummet, if I was driving my van at 130kph.

I use the TomTom MyDrive app which allows me to put in type of vehicle and maximum speed.  I don't drive much above 90kph, get around 33mpg.  We still get from the channel ports to Valencia in 2 to 2.5 days, without using toll roads and easy access to cheaper supermarket/unmanned fuel stations.

[Brian Kirby]

15 hours ago, mtravel said:

.................................. Never found a site without heated sanitary facilities.

Max

Ho, ho - that's a bold claim Massimo!!   🙂

I could point you to several sties with shower cubicles accessed directly from outside, let alone from within an unheated sanitary block!  Bit too Spartan for my tastes - and we don't travel between and mid-October and the end of March!

[spirou]

I still struggle to see the point of this thought experiment. If the point is to get across France as fast as possible then at best you're saving a few hours, maybe a day on travel using various routes. How does that make any useful difference over the 90 days?

[mtravel]

9 minutes ago, spirou said:

I still struggle to see the point of this thought experiment. If the point is to get across France as fast as possible then at best you're saving a few hours, maybe a day on travel using various routes. How does that make any useful difference over the 90 days?

Perhaps one more day in crowdy Spain.

Today I drove from Tarifa to Marbella.

Awful. Miles of condominiums, on the hills blocks of simil-villas.

I wonder how can people spend their time (and money) down there ?

[laimeduck]

55 minutes ago, mtravel said:

Perhaps one more day in crowdy Spain.

Today I drove from Tarifa to Marbella.

Awful. Miles of condominiums, on the hills blocks of simil-villas.

I wonder how can people spend their time (and money) down there ?

But Max? Why are you there? (In sunny Andalusia!)

Jeremy

 

[mtravel]

1 minute ago, laimeduck said:

But Max? Why are you there? (In sunny Andalusia!)

Jeremy

 

Culture. Just visiting small towns and villages.

Today Antequera, tomorrow Baeza and Ubeda (all Unesco classified). Then a few other (Jaen, Alcala' del Jucar, etc).

Max

p.s. Italy has 8.000 km of shores.

We don't need to go to Spain to find clean and warm water.

Perhaps the beautiful Greece/Crete.

[laimeduck]

4 minutes ago, mtravel said:

Culture. Just visiting small towns and villages.

Today Antequera, tomorrow Baeza and Ubeda (all Unesco classified). Then a few other (Jaen, Alcala' del Jucar, etc).

Max

p.s. Italy has 8.000 km of shores.

We don't need to go to Spain to find clean and warm water.

Perhaps the beautiful Greece/Crete.

OK ...I can live with that!

Jeremy