Rail fares increases: smoke and mirrors?
Wednesday sees the release of July’s inflation figure which is usually used to set next year’s rail fare increases. This year it is expected to be around 12%.
“The government claims that the fare rise will be below inflation, but the devil will be in the detail” said Chris Page, chair of Railfuture “They won’t say what the increase will be, or which fares it will apply to. If the government was serious about tackling the cost of living crisis it would make rail travel much more affordable and make it easier for people to use cars and planes less. Germany has shown the way with its €9 travelcard offer. It proves that if the price is right, people will flock to the trains”.
“I really hope that the government recognises that increasing revenue on the railway is what is important for limiting the amount of Government support - a large rail fare rise could easily have the opposite impact by discouraging rail travel - so much of it is optional now.” added fellow director Neil Middleton. “They’re not recognising that a better measure for inflation is the Consumer Price Index (CPI), not the usually higher Retail Price Index (RPI) measure which is no longer even an official statistic.”
Railfuture’s position on whether rail has been treated fairly:
We’ll compare the announced percentage increase in rail fares vs the percentage increase given to rail staff for inflation (not the amount for any agreed reform of working practice) – it really should not be any more, as staff costs are such a significant portion of rail running costs, and that increase needs to be funded (there are suggestions of a two year deal - we will test against the year one element).
We’ll take a look at increases for unregulated fares, which include Advance and Off-peak tickets - these are the ones used by most people when they’re not going to work. Given the current degree of micromanagement by central government, claiming that Advance and Off-peak fares aren’t regulated is a very generous interpretation of real life.
We’ll compare the increase against changes, if any, made to Road Fuel Duty –In March this year, the Government increased rail fares by 3.8% and decreased the road fuel tax take by over twice that (8.6%) – will the pair of announcements be any fairer this time around?
We’ll look for signs that the Government is serious about its environmental goals and does something to match the halving of domestic air passenger duty from 1 April with an equivalent fares benefit for longer rail journeys.
We’ll look to to see whether or not there is any sign of actually starting on the reform of rail fares – creating a fares system that is fit for the way the railway is now used – leisure travel is key, many people travel to work just a few days a week (but not forgetting that some still have to travel to their place of work every day), and Zoom and Teams are the new competitors for business travel (so less need to be there in person).
We’ll hope for some practical demonstration of an understanding that it is maximising revenue (number of passengers [*] x average fare paid), rather than maximising fare per passenger, that matters.