Transportation Prepositions In English: BY, IN, And ON

Prepositions are tricky in all languages, because they usually don’t have any rules that a student can memorize and use
every time without exception.

Why, for example, do we say we are fond of but in love with someone? Why are we happyabout something, but
delighted with the same thing? It can certainly be very frustrating for a student when there doesn’t seem to be any logic or
consistency to the new language.

When we talk about ways to travel, however, there are a few rules that work 100% of the time. Let’s take a look at them:

General Ways to Travel

BY

When talking about general ways to travel, we always use the preposition “by.” We can travel by bike, by motorcycle, by car,
by van, by lorry, by truck, by train, by plane, by bus, by ship, by tram, or by boat.

We can also use by to refer to the transportation environment (by sea, by land, by air) or the surface area (by rail, by road, by
water).
Specific Transport Vehicles
IN

When we talk about specific transport vehicles, however, we need to switch to either in or on. How do we know which to
use? Easy, if you remember this simple rule: If you must sit inside the vehicle, we use in.

Some examples would be: "in a car", "in a truck", or "in a helicopter": it is almost impossible to stand in them.

ON

If you can stand or walk on the vehicle, then we use on. So we go on a ship but in a rowboat; we go on a bus but in a taxi.
Other examples of when we use on would be on a plane, on a tram, on a ferry, on a subway, or on a train — again, you can
stand or walk on all of these, even when they are in motion. Finally, if we actually sit or stand upon the top of the vehicle,
then we also are on it. So we go on a bicycle, on a surfboard, on a motorcycle, on a skateboard, on skis, on ice skates, on a
snowboard, etc.

Keep in mind that the preposition in is different from the short form of inside. So, you can be inside an airplane or a cruise
ship, but that doesn’t mean we use the preposition in (we can stand and walk on both a plane and ship, so we use on as our
preposition).

Walking
ON and BY

And, where does that leave the most basic form of transportation — walking? Well, the same rules apply: we go by
foot (meaning as a general way of moving from one place to another) or we go on foot (meaning we are on top of our feet!).
Therefore, both are correct ways to describe walking.

The key thing is to recognize when something is general and when something is specific. A person can travel by bus across
England, and then say that on the bus from London to Manchester he met a very nice girl. Here, he is talking about a specific
bus he rode on (the one from City A to City B, or the one that leaves at 11:20, etc.) not the form of travel (by bus).