- Transport secretary Philip Hammond ruled out fare cuts, warning that £5.2bn year state subsidy is unsustainable
- Fare payers currently spend £6.2bn on tickets
- Only 12% of the population use trains
- Cutting £1bn a year from costs by 2020
- Handing control of routes to train operators
- The removal of conductors
- Increase in regulated fares capped at RPI plus 3% (currently RPI plus 1%)
- Bob Crow, rail union General secretary said main cause of inefficiency was the divided responsibility between government-backed Network Rail owning tracks and 17 franchises operating services under government contracts
- Train operators are handed gold-plated contracts, is a clear example of the worst practices of privatization.
10/3/2012 The Guardian
Roy McNulty's rail report found the costs of our fragmented system had created a 40% "efficiency gap" over our continental neighbours and their mostly nationalised railways.
It is estimated around 2,000 firms now operate Britain's trains. Railtrack, the commercial company setup to oversee track maintenance, was effectively renationalised, becoming Network Rail.
In its last year before privatisation, our railways required just £431m in public subsidy. By 2006, the figure had reached over £6bn. Economists at UBS found British fares are now the most expensive in the world. In 2009, the thousand-pound fare milestone was breached for the first time – a fitting tribute to market "innovation". Even the Conservative former transport minister, Philip Hammond, has conceded the trains have become "a rich man's toy".
If you arrive at Victoria and you need a train to Brighton, there is one company and one price (£24.10). In Europe, the same fare would cost an average £11. If we paid the same fares as the French with their nationalised service, it is estimated we would save over £4bn a year.
For comfort, Britain now has the most crowded trains in Europe. Passengers should remember that for the train operators, overcrowding is highly profitable. The more passengers you can cram into a single cart, the more revenue you raise from lower costs: profit.
The idea of "managing peak demand" by raising prices still further by peak users, mainly working people who do not choose their working hours
Stephen Joseph, chief executive of the Campaign for Better Transport, suggests raising fares will simply "price people on lower incomes off trains and make little difference to overcrowding".
Transport secretary Justine Greening is seeking to find £3.5bn yearly savings by 2019 but there seems little hint of any coherent plan behind it. The public are quite clear – they want rail renationalised. A 2009 poll showed 51% back the renationalisation of rail, including a third of Conservative voters. Just 11% back the current model.
Rail privatisation has failed in the most unequivocal terms. The public can see it, the unions can see it and the taxpayers can see it. The only people who can't are the firms profiting from the mess and their supporters in parliament.
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2/1/2013 The Mirror
Massive inflation-busting train fare rises were today defended by a transport minister as “not that expensive” while commuters staged protests across the country. On average, season tickets have gone up 4.2%, while the inflation rate is just 2.7%. But hapless Lib Dem minister Norman Baker said: “Once you take the basket of fares, including early advance and off-peaks, we are not nearly as expensive as is being presented.” He insisted the Coalition was “trying to make the railways very attractive”.
Tens of thousands of commuters are now paying more than £5,000 a year for their season ticket just to get to work. "That may be a blink of an eye to an old Etonian but it is a real burden to ordinary families who have seen their incomes severely squeezed in the past three years.
Labour’s Shadow transport secretary Maria Eagle said the government had “caved in” to train companies by allowing the above inflation rises and added:”People are paying more for a worse service.” Fares rose by an average of 3.9% today, taking all tickets into account. It was the tenth above-inflation rise in 10 years.
The Association of Train Operating Companies said it recognised nobody liked paying more for their journey. But it added that railway funding could only come from taxpayers or from passengers “and the Government’s policy remains that a bigger share must come from people who use the train.”
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allticketsplease.com
The long-awaited McNulty value for money study of the rail industry has in my opinion fundamentally failed to put passengers’ needs at its centre.
Although the headlines for rail users appear to be fairness and tackling the complex fare structure, there are a lot of caveats buried in the detail of the report which could lead to a lower-quality, more expensive railway for passengers.
There is some good news, such as proposals for three-day season tickets that will provide benefits for part-time workers and also greater local control of the railways. The overall theme of the report is towards cutting the government’s subsidy and granting more flexibility to Train Operating Companies, while passengers’ needs – and a wider understanding of the social and environmental benefits of the railway are at serious risk of being sidelined.
Transport Minister Philip Hammond maintains that passengers will benefit eventually. But in reality, these rewards will happen beyond the life of the current government, and only if the rail industry as a whole rises to the challenge. Meanwhile rail users are struggling with fare increases that far outstrip pay rises within the rail industry.
Media coverage seems to have focused on what will happen to off-peak fares. Current fares are resulting in serious overcrowding just at the end of the rush hour period, when, unsurprisingly, regular rail users will wait to travel on a more affordable ticket. The McNulty report is proposing to change the current structure around the peak/off fares to make services less crowded by adjusting times and fares according to areas of heavy usage.
Essentially, the majority of proposals regarding ticket prices boil down to avoiding costs associated with providing extra capacity, rather than making the option of rail more attractive to potential and existing users. There are also suggestions within the report that ticket prices could increase in areas where rail competes with other transport modes, which can only been seen as a backward step in encouraging more people to use rail as a greener mode of transport.
The other obvious concerns of the report include possible reduction of services on regional lines, the potential for frontline staff cuts meaning more unstaffed stations and the proposals to provide larger car parks which could create larger traffic problems around stations and risk turning passengers away, rather than encouraging more passengers and thus increasing revenue.people away from the train rather than increasing revenue.
There is some good news as a result of the report. Transport Minister Philip Hammond has committed to a fundamental review of fare structure. This needs to be structured to provide an easy to understand system that removes a lot of complex fares and is also fair to both commuters and occasional travellers alike. The current fare structure is complicated to the point that even railway staff members cannot understand it and therefore cannot advise passengers properly.
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