Rail passengers facing a 2.6% increase in fares
RAIL passengers will be hit by above-inflation fare rises from today. Ticket prices will increase by around 2.6%, leading to accusations that the UK Government is “pricing the railways out of existence”.
The figure represents the Retail Prices Index measure of inflation from July 2020, plus one percentage point.
Transport for Wales (TfW) will also be increasing regulated fares by 2.6% from today, St David’s Day.
When the Department for Transport (DfT) announced the same increase for England, Labour described the move as a “kick in the teeth” which would discourage people from using trains when Covid-19 restrictions are lifted.
The Labour Welsh Government owns TfW and sets strategic objectives for the company.
The DfT announced on December 16 that English fares would increase on March 1. Last month, TfW disclosed its increase following an inquiry from the Western Mail.
A TfW spokesman said: “We are aligning ourselves with the current DfT position of an RPI+1 increase in regulated fares from March 1, 2021, helping keep fares simple for people travelling between Wales and the rest of the UK rail network. Rail fares help us to fund our investment as affordably as possible for both rail passengers and taxpayers. Any investment will provide faster journeys, more frequent services, brand-new rolling stock and station improvements throughout the Wales and Borders network.”
However, the Scottish Government is implementing smaller rises of 1.6% and 0.6% for peak and off-peak travel respectively.
Examples of the potential fare hikes include a Neath to Cardiff annual season ticket going up by £47 to £1,855 and a Bangor to Llandudno return rising by £31 to £1,235.
Actual prices will be released today. The UK, Scottish and Welsh governments took over rail franchise agreements from train operators in March 2020, following the collapse in demand for travel caused by the virus crisis.
Fares usually become more expensive on the first working day of every year, but the 2021 rise was deferred due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Bruce Williamson, of pressure group Railfuture, described the increase as “the usual annual punishment for rail passengers, just slightly delayed”.
He claimed the UK Government “should be encouraging the public to start using trains again” when lockdown restrictions ease.
“But instead they’re gradually pricing the railways out of existence,” he said. “It just doesn’t make sense to kick the rail industry when it’s down.”
TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady warned that the increase in the cost of rail travel “will not help commuters and city centres recover from the pandemic”.
Rises in around half of fares – including season tickets on most commuter routes – are regulated by the UK, Scottish and Welsh governments.
Train operators determine increases in unregulated fares such as Advance tickets, but this year they are heavily linked to rises in regulated tickets as governments have taken on firms’ financial liabilities. That means the overall average increase across England and Wales is around 2.6%.
A DfT spokeswoman noted that this is the lowest rise in four years “despite unprecedented taxpayer support for the rail industry”.
She went on: “By delaying the change in fares, passengers who needed to renew season tickets were able to get a better deal, and we will set out further plans to offer cheaper, more flexible tickets for commuters in due course.”
Rail campaign group Railfuture Wales urged TfW to provide special offers once the public could use trains for non-essential journeys again.
Chair Peter Kingsbury said: “Welsh railways face a very challenging few years ahead as a result of the pandemic. Any fare increase above inflation needs to be accompanied by a range of initiatives to encourage the public to start using the trains again.
“These could include special offers to get people to consider using rail for days out and holidays once restrictions are lifted, and the introduction of flexible season tickets to allow commuters to still save on ticket costs if travelling to work less than five days a week.”
THE Welsh Government’s new contract for dualling the A465 Heads of the Valleys road is expected to cost two and a half times as much per mile as similar schemes in the UK’s other home nations, new analysis reveals.
Three trunk roads in Scotland, England and Northern Ireland are currently being dualled over a total of 30.4 miles. At a total construction cost of £646m, they average £21.3m per mile.
All three schemes together only slightly exceed the £590m forecast construction cost of dualling the A465 between Dowlais and Hirwaun – just 11 miles of road. The A465 contract, awarded last autumn, works out at £53.6m per mile.
The construction cost will initially be borne by the consortium which will dual the road in a Public Private Partnership (PPP). Once the work is completed, due in 2025, it will operate that section of the A465 for 30 years and receive Annual Service Payments (ASPs) from the Welsh Government.
The ASPs will primarily cover the construction cost and will total £1.14bn – or £104m per mile – before VAT and inflation are added.
A small percentage of the ASPs will cover maintenance of the road by the consortium. Evidence for the scheme’s public inquiry in 2018 estimated “Operating (Maintenance) Costs” at £13.5m in 2010 prices.
For the analysis, the Western Mail excluded construction of roads on new alignments, where the cost per mile of new traffic lane is likely to be much lower because construction is more efficient on sites closed to the public.
Dualling a trunk road requires engineers to accommodate large volumes of passing traffic, because sustained closure of the road is impractical and would cause major inconvenience.
New features such as junctions with flyovers, roundabouts and slip roads have to be built in stages. Measures are needed to protect the safety of the public and workforce, as well as minimising disruption to road-users.
One current dualling of a local road, as opposed to a trunk road, comes close to the cost per mile of the new A465 contract. Phase 4 of the A4440 Worcester Southern Link Road scheme is costing £51.7m per mile, but is just over one mile long, and a large proportion is on a new viaduct. This scheme incurs many of the usual overheads but for only a short section of road.
The Welsh Government’s decision to award the A465 contract followed major cost increases and delays on the A465 dualling between Gilwern and Brynmawr, still unfinished. The revised cost per mile is £67.2m, more than three times the average of the comparable schemes outside Wales, but the topography in the Clydach Gorge was exceptionally challenging.
The construction cost per mile of both A465 schemes together is 172% more than the average of the three comparable schemes elsewhere in the UK.
We asked the Welsh Government what benchmarking against other dualling schemes it had done before awarding the recent A465 contract, why the new contract’s cost per mile was so much higher, and whether the chosen PPP model had encouraged bidders to include very large risk allowances.
A spokesman replied: “Simple cost-per-kilometre comparisons between different schemes do not take into account the differences between the scope of each scheme and site conditions. The dualling of the A465 between Gilwern and Brynmawr, and Dowlais to Hirwaun, are both significantly challenging and complex projects.
“We are confident our approach will deliver significant benefits, delivering value for money for the local communities, businesses and road users.”
He said apportioning risk between the parties formed a large part of the discussions with bidders during procurement, and the outcome of the process allocated risk to the party best-placed to manage it.
Engineering challenges on the A465 cited by the government include replacement of at-grade junctions with motorway-type junctions, construction of bridges and retaining walls, and large amounts of sequential working and other measures to ensure works are undertaken safely alongside live traffic.