‘Fare rise another kick in teeth for rail passengers’
FED-UP rail passengers beset by overcrowded and delayed services are set to be hit by the biggest fare hike in five years next month.
The Rail Delivery Group (RDG) announced on Tuesday that average ticket prices across Britain will increase by 3.4% starting on January 2.
Tickets for journeys with Arriva Trains Wales will rise by 3.3% while Great Western Railway passengers will pay 3.1% more.
It is the sharpest rise since 2013, when fares increased by an average of 3.9% across the UK.
An off-peak return from Cardiff to London will cost £84.85 under the new plans, up from a previous cost of £82.30.
A Cardiff to Bristol Temple Meads season ticket is £2,956 at the moment and will increase to £3,060 in January.
Commuters in and around Cardiff and users of the Valleys Lines services in particular have made repeated criticisms of standards of service in recent months.
In October Arriva Trains Wales issued an apology after schoolchildren were pictured “crammed” into a carriage with some standing on seats to make space.
Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood at the time said the situation was “distressing” but added: “Overcrowding is a familiar problem for anyone who uses the Valleys Lines.”
The previous month RCT council leader Andrew Morgan blamed “bad transport” for people moving out of the area, saying: “It’s a poor performance from Arriva as far as I’m concerned. They say it is good but I don’t agree.”
One in nine trains (12%) failed to meet the rail industry’s punctuality target in the past 12 months.
That means they arrived at terminating stations more than five minutes late for commuter services or 10 minutes late for long-distance journeys.
Fewer than half (47%) of passengers are satisfied with the value for money of train tickets, according to Transport Focus.
Passenger watchdog Transport Focus compared the news to “a chill wind” blowing down platforms as many passengers’ incomes are stagnating or falling.
Chief executive Anthony Smith said: “While substantial welcome investment in new trains and improved track and signals is continuing passengers are still seeing the basic promises made by the rail industry broken on too many days.”
The Rail Maritime and Transport union described it as “another kick in the teeth” for passengers who are already paying the highest fares in Europe.
General secretary Mick Cash said: “For public sector workers and many others in our communities who have had their pay and benefits capped or frozen by this government these fare increases are another twist of the economic knife while the private train companies are laughing all the way to the bank.”
The RDG, which speaks for the train companies and Network Rail, said more than 97p in every pound from fares goes back into improving and running the railway.
Chief executive Paul Plummer noted the Government controls increases to almost half of fares while the rest are “heavily influenced” by the payments train companies make as part of contracts to run franchises.
AT a time when most people have faced a real-terms pay cut the news that rail fares are to go up by 3.4% is an infuriating blow.
It is unreasonable to expect hard-pressed passengers to pay that much more to travel to work, go on trips, and visit friends.
In Wales we have a particular reason to feel hard done by.
The main rail line across south Wales is not being electrified beyond Swansea, and the development of the South Wales Metro – otherwise known as the electrification of the Valleys lines – appears to have stalled.
Huge numbers of extra houses are being built in Cardiff and the city centre is due to have thousands of additional workers because of the BBC and neighbouring developments.
Yet there appears to be little evidence of public transport planning to cope with the additional people.
Putting up train fares amounts to punishing those who are socially responsible by leaving their cars at home, or not owning cars at all.
The future must be one in which a higher proportion of people travel by public transport yet to achieve such an outcome there has to be encouragement. Constantly rising train fares act as a disincentive to change car-centric lifestyles.
Of course, the rise in train fares is linked to the piecemeal privatisation of the railway network that happened 25 years ago.
The need to make profits has led to aggressive fare increases, especially on lines to London, where turn-up-and-go passengers can find themselves paying significantly more than it would cost to fly to the Mediterranean.
It is also regrettable that the UK Government has banned the Welsh Government from awarding the Wales and Borders franchise to a not-for-profit company.
There is a frustrating irony in the fact that while state-owned railway companies from overseas are allowed to bid for franchises in Britain it is not possible for a public sector company from the UK to do the same.
Nevertheless the Welsh Government deserves praise for the way it has extended the passenger rail network in Wales out of its core budget at a time when it has been under no legal obligation to do so. Equally, it has done its best to keep fares down: anyone who doubts that should, for example, compare the return fare from Cardiff to Llandrindod via Swansea with the equivalent journey via Craven Arms.
The substantially lower fare for a journey wholly in Wales is down to the Welsh Government.
There is no shame in subsidising public transport: doing so is a social necessity.
We need tighter regulation over fare increases – and we certainly need to re-examine whether it is appropriate to base increased fares on a formula linked to Retail Price Index inflation.
This is really quite absurd when for a number of years the UK Government has been encouraging everyone – but especially employers – to use the lower Consumer Price Index as a measure of inflation.