Passenger focus report on train fares

A_fiend_for_life

According to Radio 4's Today we pay the highest in Europe for rail tickets. On average between 50% and 100% more according to Today.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7897903.stm

lostinrates

And they are often dirty and loud too. I really like trains and would use them more in UK if there was greater rabble control! Its a fine line between, for example, groups of teens being boistrous and fun and groups of teens making everyone's journey uncomfortable. I miss trains with carriages, then people of different volumes can huddle together in small groups.

A_fiend_for_life

That's the Pullman trains I think.

lukekelly_2

Comparing train fares without taking into account the substantially lower government subsidy paid to the railways in this country is absurd. It would be interesting to read a study comparing the value for money of various European railways but it would have to look at total funding, not just one subset of the funding.

As it happens government subsidies for the railways are relatively regressive. Given the demographics of those commuting by train the subsidies redistribute wealth to the South-East from the rest of the country.

JasonLVC

I'm a regular user of the Swiss (and French) rail service. No doubt they receive massive government subsidies....but the transport system works to a tee. Tickets are cheap and even cheaper if you have a season ticket.

They run on time, are clean and plentifull. A train leaves Geneve airport every 10 minutes or so. The best thing is that most trains are about 15 carriages long - no standing and plenty of room for folks to sit down too.

Rather than enforce annual withdrawl of subsidies, the UK government should instead seek to cap the profitability of the network so that each network operator can only make £x profit. Now that isn't going to excite many investors, but then, the investors have had 15+ years to invest and make the system work (under the logic that the private sector knows best) and they don't seem to have done much other than cream profit as dividends.

People wouldn't mind paying 50% more for their tickets if the trains were on time, reliable and you had a seat. I gave up on UK trains last year after tiring of standing each and every night as a train made up of ONE coach was all the network put on to deal with a major city and about 70 passengers going to another major city.

Wookster

JasonLVC wrote: »

People wouldn't mind paying 50% more for their tickets if the trains were on time, reliable and you had a seat. I gave up on UK trains last year after tiring of standing each and every night as a train made up of ONE coach was all the network put on to deal with a major city and about 70 passengers going to another major city.

Crikey moses I'd be screaming and shouting if train fares went up by that much here. They are already enormously expensive.

Rochdale_Pioneers

To be fair the report also said that we have the cheapest advance purchase fares in Europe - its turn up and travel tickets where we get scalped.

And with respect to the suggestion to cap profits, that wouldn't make a difference. People complained that British Rail's fares were high - especially when they were ordered to increase fares to price passengers off the trains when capacity was tight. At the time of privatisation British Rail had the only profitable Intercity rail network anywhere in the world, and that small profit was pumped back in and the fares were still preceived as too high.

So its a question of subsidy. CLearly we need to remove all the cash sapping layers of profit out of the system. But thats still not going to make the trains as cheap as in France.

misskool

JasonLVC wrote: »

I

People wouldn't mind paying 50% more for their tickets if the trains were on time, reliable and you had a seat. I gave up on UK trains last year after tiring of standing each and every night as a train made up of ONE coach was all the network put on to deal with a major city and about 70 passengers going to another major city.

Actually, yes, people would mind.

An annual return ticket including london travelcard is now £3700 from where I live. An increase of 50% would bring it to over £5500. No matter how you spin that, it's a lot of money to pay just to get to work.

dealsearcher

The government is there to govern. Apparently trains = environmentally green. Why therefore are ticket prices so high? If subsidize are required then so be it. The french have been very successful with subsidize.

I say 'apparently' because sending half empty trains up and down the country is not an efficient use of energy. Even if they are electric that power has to be generated somewhere.

Rochdale_Pioneers

dealsearcher wrote: »

The government is there to govern. Apparently trains = environmentally green. Why therefore are ticket prices so high? If subsidize are required then so be it. The french have been very successful with subsidize.

I say 'apparently' because sending half empty trains up and down the country is not an efficient use of energy. Even if they are electric that power has to be generated somewhere.

And that is why seriously cheap advance purchase tickets are so readily available, as the operating companies try and fill empty seats.

boyse7en

misskool wrote: »

Actually, yes, people would mind.

An annual return ticket including london travelcard is now £3700 from where I live. An increase of 50% would bring it to over £5500. No matter how you spin that, it's a lot of money to pay just to get to work.

Depends how you look at it. £5500 = £22.90 per day (allowing 240 working days per year).

I don't know where you live, but assuming a 35 mile drive to work instead. The AA calculates a running cost per mile of 45.46p for an average diesel (link to figures) which comes to £3182 per year, not including parking costs. Add in a parking cost of £8 per day and the total for the year comes to £5102. Which is a lot more than the current price, and not much less than if the rail ticket went up by 50% (if they only go up by 37% you are still better off going by train)