Rail passengers hit with largest fare rise in 5 years
RAIL passengers will today be hit with the biggest fare rise in half a decade. Average ticket prices across Britain have gone up by 3.4%.
The cost of a 12-month season ticket between Cardiff and Swansea has jumped from £1,684 to £1,744.
There is alarm that for many people fares are rising faster than wages, with the TUC claiming rail commuters are now spending up to five times as much of their salary on season tickets as passengers on the continent. The cost of 12 month’s commuting between Bridgend and Cardiff has jumped from £984 to £1,016, while people travelling from Carmarthen to Swansea will see the amount they pay climb from £1,160 to £1,200.
People who travel between Neath and the Welsh capital will be hit with an increase from £1,652 to £1,708.
Stephen Joseph, chief executive of the Campaign for Better Transport (CBT), accused the Government of choosing to “snub rail passengers” by continuing to raise fares while fuel duty is frozen for a seventh consecutive year.
He said: “The extra money that season ticket holders will have to fork out this year is almost as much as drivers will save.
“That doesn’t seem fair to us or the millions of people who commute by train, especially as wages continue to stagnate. What’s good enough for
motorists should be good enough for rail passengers.”
The Government uses the previous July’s Retail Prices Index (RPI) measure of inflation to determine increases in regulated fares –3.6% in 2017.
Bruce Williamson, of campaign group Railfuture, warned that “people are being priced out of getting to work”.
He called for the Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation measure to be used for regulated fare increases.
It is normally lower than RPI and is used by the Government to set increases in benefits and pensions.
Mr Williamson said: “If CPI had been used instead of RPI since 2004, then rail fares would be 17% lower, a significant amount of money for season ticket holders who are spending thousands of pounds to get to work.
“It’s no wonder that poor value for money is the number one concern of rail travellers, with British rail fares amongst the most expensive in Europe.”
Plaid Cymru Treasury spokesman Jonathan Edwards said: “The way rail fare prices are currently calculated is unfair for customers and often means eye-watering increases in costs for them. At a time of stagnant wage growth and the biggest squeeze on living standards for over a century these huge increases in rail prices will hit commuters hard.”
Mr Edwards argued that fares should be linked to CPI inflation, not RPI, adding: “It is clear the rail franchise model pursued by successive Westminster governments is bad news for commuters and taxpayers alike. That is why Plaid Cymru advocates control over Welsh rail and transport infrastructure in Welsh hands so that we can deliver better solutions for our communities.”
A Department for Transport spokesman said: “We are investing in the biggest modernisation of our railways since the Victorian times to improve services for passengers – providing faster and better, more comfortable trains with extra seats. This includes the first trains running though London on the Crossrail project, an entirely new Thameslink rail service and continuing work on the transformative Great North Rail Project.
“We keep fare prices under constant review and the price rises for this year are capped in line with inflation, with 97p out of every £1 paid going back into the railway.”
However, the TUC said workers had a much worse deal than European counterparts, claiming someone travelling from Chelmsford in Essex to London will have to pay 13% of their salary for a £381 monthly season ticket – compared with 2% for a comparable commute of around 30 miles in France (£66), 3% in Italy (£65), 4% in Germany (£118) and 5% in Spain (£108) and Belgium (£144).
Mick Cash, general secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union, said: “While the British passenger is being pumped for cash, the same private companies are axing safetycritical staff and security on our trains and stations.
“It’s a national scandal that private profit comes before public safety on our rail network.
“Even worse, with 75% of Britain’s railways in overseas hands, it is the British people who are subsidising state-run rail operations across the continent.
“The answer to this racket is a full return to public ownership of Britain’s railways and an end to this gross profiteering at the fare-payers expense.”
However, John O’Connell, Chief Executive at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Whilst we hear from some on the left that renationalisation is the only way to improve the railways, the evidence clearly points in the opposite direction. Dividend payments from the private companies are very small, whilst investment is very high, and the only way to significantly lower fares would be to make taxpayers subsidise them.
“Rather than waste billions renationalising, efforts should be spent on ending the disruption of trade unions, as well as scrapping the true rail scandal in this country, which is HS2.”
Mick Whelan, leader of the train drivers’ union Aslef said: “Workers have missed out on real pay rises for years. It is unfair that this subsidised industry drives up transport poverty.
“These fare rises hurt the communities and industries that they should be supporting, and this is without even counting the scandalous cost of parking at certain stations.”
Manuel Cortes, leader of the Transport Salaried Staffs Association, said: “Every year UK passengers are forced to pay more to Holland, Germany, France and Italy, all of whom currently own our train operating companies.
“Yet, it’s all talk and no trousers when it comes to taking back control from the foreign companies who own large swathes of our infrastructure including our railways.
“Money made out of passengers
here is invested in fare subsidies there.”
Unite officer Bobby Morton said: “Millions of commuters are being held to ransom by the greedy privatised rail companies.
“Rail travellers, who are seeing their wages lag far behind this fare increase, are being asked to take another hit to their incomes to pay for expensive and often unreliable trains.
“Every day the case for the public ownership of the rail industry grows stronger.”
But Paul Plummer, chief executive of the Rail Delivery Group which represents train operators, said: “On average, fares will rise by less than inflation this year. For every pound paid in fares, 97p goes directly back to operating and improving services and, with more people travelling, that means more money for investment by the private and public partnership railway to build the better network Britain needs.”
Alex Hayman of Which? said: “This price rise is yet more bad news for passengers, many of whom have just come to the end of yet another year of cancellations, delays, overcrowding and poor service from train companies. For passengers to genuinely feel they are getting value for money, they must be able to find the best ticket for their journey, cheaper fares must not be hidden and compensation must be paid where it is owed.”
The fares shock comes after we reported yesterday how rail passengers are having to travel on the oldest trains since current records began.
The average age of 21.1 years is older than at any point in publicly available records, and 60% older than the equivalent figure in 2006. Arriva Trains Wales was one of three operators to see a rise in the average age of its rolling stock, while the average age of Great Western’s trains was 32 years.
Manuel Cortes, general secretary of the Transport Salaried Staffs Association, said: “Britain used to be proud of its reputation for giving the railways to the world. Now we just have, for the most part, a clapped-out system.”