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Rail Fare set to increase in 2015
brain_higgy
Posts: 500 Forum Member
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-28842633
This is getting worse rail fare goes up each year and people cant afford it
This is getting worse rail fare goes up each year and people cant afford it
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Rail fares are exorbitant, unless you know well in advance when you are going to travel and can take advantage of special offer fares.
The rail companies could still increase the fares too 2% which isn't illegal.
This less than two weeks after the buses had their subsidies cut to the bone in our county.
The slow strangulation of public transport.
Repeat until fade ..
I think you're right.
Here, they're proposing to reduce our bus service to hourly from 2 per hour, make the first and last buses earlier/later (the last bus is at shockingly late 6pm, and the first one isn't till 7.40 am, not early enough for most people who commute to London to get a train that gets in before 9), and increase fares by 30%.
The fare is currently £1.70, so a 30% increase would make it £2.20 for a journey of around 1.25 miles.
Yet despite all the increases people still continue to use the train so, ergo, your point about them not being able to afford it is rendered moot.
That's why we see fuel duty freezes and the majority of bus services in the latest subsidy cuts being preserved for bus pass users after 9:30am to mid-afternoon, but little joy for train passengers and many bus passengers for where reducing or even removing subsidies are an easy target for cuts.
The Government needs to remember that low paid workers have to use the trains as well.
Some flexible seasons exist but they're rare.
Ultimately the need to travel in the peaks is what leads to the increases. Despite extra revenue from more passengers, you also increase costs because you need to provide more paths in the peak, upgrade signalling and extending platforms, plus acquire new trains that only get used for a fraction of the day, yet still cost millions.
People who move out of London to enjoy a bigger home (as I did 10 years ago) have to surely know, as I did, that travel would always go up. It was a price I felt worth paying for a better quality of life, and season tickets are generally quite well protected and often considerably cheaper than for those who only need to travel once or twice a week but still at peak times.
As I said above, smartcards could potentially offer discounts to those who travel less frequent but still more than your average user who benefits from cheap advance tickets purchased up to 12 weeks in advance.
Finally, the majority of a ticket price is going to Network Rail. And that's not privatised. So all those who think renationalisation would lower prices, I'd like to know how. Many new franchises are management contracts like TfL operate buses in London.
Hugely inconvenient but do-able for workers to organise car sharing or coach trips to their usual station destinations for a short but concentrated period leaving the railway system idle and making no money for their operators.
The difficulty is that season ticket charges are already in the bag so the impact on revenue wouldn't be as instant as it needs to be to make an impact however commuters demonstrating that they have the potential to do without the railways will force whoever is responsible to stop the ripping off of commuters.
Nominate your organiser for your train carriage tomorrow and by the end of the week the carriage organisers should get together to roll out a plan for each train in the country.......or something like that.
Never going to happen!
Here's a rough like-for-like comparison for each, walk up fare on a paper ticket like any tourist would buy...
(Home) London - £9.00 Zones 1-2
Paris - £5.42 (Paris Mobilis zones 1-2)
Budapest - £4.21 (covers all buses, trams and metro in city centre)
Berlin - £5.45 (zones a & b)
Anyway, make train fares cheaper and the commuter services would be even more crowded.
What about football matches? A stadium holding tens of thousands and then trying to squeeze on the trains and tubes. It's going to be busy no matter what.
And that's the problem in the peak. Lower prices and you just create more demand and it will be even more unbearable.
Sorry but unfortunately my work didn't stop just because sport was on. They shouldn't be selling tickets when there's no capacity on the trains. Many people were left at stations unable to get on.
Surely people who needed to work made suitable arrangements just as people did during the Olympics (which I suspect was a fair bit busier).
Or don't bid for an event that will make commuters have to stand.