Rail firms free to rip off millions of passengers with inflation con

Ministers were accused of letting rail firms ‘rip off’ commuters last night after millions were left facing a huge hike to the cost of their season tickets.

rail companies will be allowed to raise fares by almost 4 per cent from January – the biggest increase in five years – following yesterday’s publication of inflation figures for July.

the figures showed that inflation, as measured by the retail Price index (rPi), hit 3.6 per cent last month. this is far higher than the more widely-used Consumer Price index (CPi) rate of inflation, which stood at just 2.6 per cent.

As fare increases are linked to rPi, it means the average commuter faces paying £2,888 for their annual season ticket next year – £694 more than in 2010.

the unluckiest commuters are now paying more than £2,500 more to travel to work than they were in 2010, according to Labour figures.

But if the lower CPi inflation measure had been used since 2010, the average commuter would now be paying £273 a year less.

the prospect of higher fares sparked anger among commuters packed on to trains ‘like sardines’.

Campaigners said it was unforgivable that people were being forced to pay more when services remain patchy.

the announcement came on a day of triple disruption in London, with a points failure outside Waterloo, an evacuation at Holborn station and a train hitting the buffers at King’s Cross.

the 3.6 per cent rise affects ‘regulated’ fares, including season tickets, ‘anytime’ trips and some off-peak journeys.

it means that, from January, a Virgin trains season ticket between Birmingham and London euston will have risen by £2,539 since 2010 to a whopping £10,567 – a rise of 32 per cent.

Last night campaigners and rail unions demanded future fares be linked to the lower CPi rate – which is used to determine wage increases.

even the Office for national statistics says rPi is ‘ not a good measure’ and has refused to recommend its use.

David sidebottom, director of transport Focus, said: ‘While performance remains patchy and with pay and wages not

keeping pace with inflation, [passengers] will feel rightly aggrieved if they are paying much higher rises next January. Why is the Government not using its preferred measure of inflation: the one that is used to determine wages and pension increases, and one which is often lower than rPi?’

the rMt estimated the 3.6 per cent fare hike means a minimum of an extra £337million in revenue for the train operating companies.

Leader Mick Cash said: ‘the

huge hike ... is another kick in the teeth for passengers who already fork out colossal sums to travel on rammed out, unreliable trains while the private operators are laughing all the way to the bank.

‘With over three quarters of Britain’s railways now in the hands of foreign states these huge sums of money aren’t being invested in essential upgrades and modernisation here, they are being siphoned off to subsidise transport services over the Channel.’ Last night the Department for transport said there were no plans to help commuters by changing the inflation measure used.

A spokesman said: ‘ the use of rPi is consistent with the general approach adopted across the rail industry.

‘rPi is used to account for inflation in the cost of running train services and is used to index some charges such as network rail charges for using the track.’

AT Waterloo, Britain’s busiest railway station, this was the day a derailment and an unrelated points failure added to the misery of commuters already facing weeks of chaos caused by building work.

At King’s Cross, it was the day a train hit the buffers at 6.20am, sending passengers flying. Meanwhile in Cambridgeshire, Network Rail warned that disruption caused by a derailment on Monday will continue for ‘several more days’.

Piling on the pain, yesterday was also the day millions of long- suffering rail users learned that from January, they are to be hit by hefty 3.6 per cent increases in regulated fares, adding hundreds of pounds to many season tickets.

Indeed, yet again they’ve fallen victim to the old con-trick whereby fare rises – like the usurious interest rates on student loans – are pegged to the discredited Retail Price Index measure of inflation, which almost invariably outstrips the more accurate Consumer Price Index.

At a time when state pensions, child benefit and other Government outgoings are adjusted according to the lower CPI, how can ministers justify letting train companies go on using a measure resoundingly rejected by the Office for National Statistics?

Illustrating the sheer scale of the fiddle, an analysis by this paper shows that a Birmingham-to-London commuter would pay £1,000 less next year if fares had been pegged to the true rise in cost of living since 2010, as reflected by the CPI.

Even if our railways were the world’s most efficient, such underhand treatment would be unacceptable. As it is, rail bosses on seven-figure salaries run appalling services – crowded, strike-ridden and, as yesterday showed once again, chronically unreliable.

Meanwhile, commuters are left utterly at their mercy, as soaring house prices drive them ever further from town centres.

How much longer before ministers end the skulduggery – and peg all inflationlinked price rises to the CPI?