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Fury as commuters face train fare rises of up to 11.2%

ReenaSewraz
by Lovemoney Staff ReenaSewraz on 20 August 2012  |  Comments 17 comments

Some commuters face train fare price rises of more than three times inflation next year. And they aren't happy.

Thousands of us rely on trains to get to work every day. But this already expensive form of travel is about to get even more costly, with fare increases from next year of almost double the rate of inflation.

The increase, which will come into effect in January, is linked to July's Retail Prices Index. In England, train networks can increase their prices by RPI plus three percentage points. And after this week’s announcement that RPI has risen to 3.2%, that means the average rise will be a whopping 6.2%.

In Scotland and Wales, train firms are allowed to charge 1% above RPI.

What’s more, that’s just the average. Some price rises could top 11.2% on selected routes thanks to a system called ‘flex’. This agreement allows rail companies to push up some fares by 5% more as long as they make cuts elsewhere.

For some commuters, already overstretched, this could add hundreds of pounds to their travel costs.

The increases will affect regulated fares, season tickets, commuter, saver and a few inter-city services. 

For example, commuters travelling with a Reading to London season ticket currently pay £3,800. But with the planned rises this figure could shoot up to over £4,000.

Those travelling from Stowmarket in Sussex to London already pay a hefty £5,712 for their yearly ticket, but could face a rise of £354.14, bringing the total cost in January to over £6,000.

Commuter town

Current season ticket price to London

Predicted price rise at 6.2%

Predicted season ticket price January 2013

Brighton

£3,392

£210.30

£3,602.30

Luton

£3,604

£223.45

£3,827.45

Reading

£3,800

£235.60

£4,035.60

Oxford

£4,348

£269.58

£4,617.58

Bedford

£4,004

£248.25

£4,252.25

Stowmarket

£5,712

£354.14

£6,066.14

Since 2004, the year-on-year price rises in train fares have all been above inflation. The problem is this doesn’t seem to be buying commuters a better service. So do you think your rail journey is good value for money?

If you're anything like the commuters I spoke to, chances are you don't. One said: "The prices go up all the time, but nothing ever changes. The trains I use are all old trains." Another said he was thinking of moving home for the sake of a cheaper commute.

The imminent price rises will make our rail journeys some of the most expensive in Europe and the cost is likely to make a big impact on our already overstretched budgets.

The Government has performed U-turns on a number of policies already this year. Let’s hope that the planned rail fare rises will also be reconsidered by the Government to save commuters from the misery of paying even more for a service they‘re not entirely satisfied with.

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Comments (17)

  • rbgos
    Love rating 81
    rbgos said

    Rail users have long been given a "free ride" thanks to a large part of the cost of their travel being paid for by non-rail-using taxpayers. This government, at last, is starting to redress the balance by reducing the taxpayer subsidy - but the rail users, used to their subsidised tickets, are of course unhappy.

    Well, tough. Those who chose to travel by rail should pay for the cost of the railways, no-one else. I shall continue to cycle to work, feeling ever-so-slightly happier that a bit less of my hard-earned money is going to pay for someone else's train journey.

    Report on 22 August 2012  |  Love thisLove  0 loves
  • heetz
    Love rating 1
    heetz said

    I couldn't agree more with Rbgos. Whilst it may seem harsh to say, why should non-rail users "take the financial strain" for commuters. If you want to commute, pay for it and don't plead for subsidy after subsidy. And how many of those who are complaining voted for the present government/coalition. Car costs have also risen dramatically but we just take it on the chin or drive less, drive more economically, purchase more fuel efficient vehicles, etc.

    Report on 22 August 2012  |  Love thisLove  1 love
  • harington
    Love rating 1
    harington said

    Stowmarket is in Suffolk, not Sussex. I don't suppose that makes the fare rise more palatable, but it is a bit further from London.

    Report on 22 August 2012  |  Love thisLove  1 love
  • derekl
    Love rating 2
    derekl said

    While superficially it may be attractive to argue that rail users should pay for the full cost of their travel, there are other factors to be considered. Every rail user is one less road user, freeing road space for those who choose to use car or bike. That also decreases the pressure for new road build, which is an expensive exercise.

    Which moves to the next argument, which is that road users don't pay for the costs of roads, which comes from general taxation. I am pretty sure that Vehicle Excise Duty pays nothing like the cost of building and maintaining the road network, and even if it did, I cannot see that that affects the argument.

    Car ownership and use has increased in cost, but nothing like as "dramatically" as rail fares.

    A further point is that the high cost of rail is directly associated with the privatisation exercise, which has resulted in something like a four-fold increase in subsidy.

    Report on 22 August 2012  |  Love thisLove  2 loves
  • Basia02a
    Love rating 43
    Basia02a said

    I agree heetz. Also, what is wrong with moving for your job? I had to do it many times. Reading to London - £17 a day for about 52 miles in rush hour doesn't seem too unreasonable to me

    Report on 22 August 2012  |  Love thisLove  1 love
  • duncanw
    Love rating 1
    duncanw said

    i do agree that train fares are expensive but how much would you pay if you drove from say brighton everyday in fuel,parking,congestion charge etc,a lot more i think,and yes i have used trains to commute from kent to london then moved to devon and got a car,guess which worked out cheaper!?!?! it wasn`t the car!!!

    Report on 22 August 2012  |  Love thisLove  0 loves
  • electricblue
    Love rating 643
    electricblue said

    'Every rail user is one less road user' ? Oh, so those are the options are they? This is an utterly flawed and absurd argument justified because people are stupid enough to spend hours commuting to work pointlessly in large cities. There is no good reason for the vast majorty of businesses to be headquartered in cities and perhaps financial pressures will finally make some CEO's realise that relocation out into the far suburbs will save everyone a packet. Never mind having your call centres in Bangalore, why not have your head office in one of thousands of relatively rural locations in the UK which have superb transport infrastructure? I totally disagree with any subsidies other than to link areas with otherwise poor transport links,

    Report on 22 August 2012  |  Love thisLove  1 love
  • rbgos
    Love rating 81
    rbgos said

    derekl said "Every rail user is one less road user, freeing road space for those who choose to use car or bike." - Or, to look at it another way, every car and bike and bus user is one less rail user, freeing up a seat on the train for those who travel that way, so maybe the rail users should subsidise the road users? That arguement is absurd, either way around.

    derekl said "...road users don't pay for the costs of roads, which comes from general taxation. I am pretty sure that Vehicle Excise Duty pays nothing like the cost of building and maintaining the road network..." - Actually, the money raised by fuel duty (£27.3b) and vehicle exise duty (£5.8b) WAY exceeds the amount spent on building and maintaining the roads (£9b - all 2010/11 figures), so motorists are paying the costs for the infrastructure, and much much more. To say nothing of the VAT on the fuel, and the VAT on the duty on the fuel; those travelling by train don't even have to pay VAT...

    Report on 23 August 2012  |  Love thisLove  1 love
  • Nutmeg
    Love rating 4
    Nutmeg said

    It's hard to justify above-inflation price increases when the trains are often so crowded that it's often impossible to get a seat.

    Report on 23 August 2012  |  Love thisLove  1 love
  • oldbloke
    Love rating 3
    oldbloke said

    "Above-inflation" but rail isn't subject to the inflation measured by CPI or RPI or whatever. Trains run off diesel and electricity.....what % have those gone up by this year? Is it any surprise that rail fares have to go up too? I remember that petrol was about 90p per litre in January 2008 and now it's about £1.35, so that's a rise of about 50% in 4.5 years or, say, 10% a year....so what's the surprise if rail prices have gone up?

    Report on 23 August 2012  |  Love thisLove  0 loves
  • Steviebaby1959
    Love rating 28
    Steviebaby1959 said

    But, everybody used July's Retail Prices Index and Consumer Price Index, it's what the Government told us to do back in the old days. However, since December 2003, the Government has used the Consumer Price Index (CPI) as its main measure of inflation in the economy rather than the Retail Prices Index (RPI). The highest annual average inflation since the introduction of the RPI back in 1947, came in 1975, when inflation touched 25% for that year, so, the current small rise of 6.2% is chickenfeed these days, you've never had it so good.

    Report on 23 August 2012  |  Love thisLove  0 loves
  • deanrobinson78
    Love rating 13
    deanrobinson78 said

    Did I hear right that FirstGroup are going to pay nearly £10bn over 13 years for the West Coast franchise.....

    So a couple of points from that:

    1) is the government going to re-invest that £10bn to the benefit of rail users? Maybe tax relief of some form?

    2) Is the bidding process pushing up rail fares? Having to commit to such a high price surely means that prices will go up to cover it

    I still think, as pointed out above several times, that rail fares are cheaper than car travel when you consider tax, petrol, depreciation, repairs, MOT, insurance and parking. I do feel sorry for people though whose wage increase is simply not matching the current "applied" inflation to everyday expenses.

    Report on 29 August 2012  |  Love thisLove  1 love
  • wiliamson
    Love rating 4
    wiliamson said

    Our rail fares are the highest in Europe. Why? The government never gets off its soap box about "harmonising with Europe" - well how about "harmonising" our rail fares? What are other European countries doing, which we arent, so that they have lower fares.

    Report on 29 August 2012  |  Love thisLove  0 loves
  • Meanmachine2
    Love rating 37
    Meanmachine2 said

    What I can never understand is the fact that when the railways were privatised the government paid vast subsidies to the private companies so that they would run the trains. Back in the so called bad old days of British Rail, if they had been paid the sort of money that the private companies creamed off as profit the railways would probably now be superb.

    Most of the rolling stock is old & leased with absolutely no spare capacity. If a train breaks down that is it. There are not even spare locomotives to pull the broken down train out of the way & everything stops until it is fixed.

    On the east coast main line the safety rules about a train always being pulled by a locomotive are completely broken as there is only a power unit at one end which pushes when travelling in one direction. Hence the other year when a train hit a car on the tracks it was completely derailed. The private companies answer was simply to add more weight to the carriage at the far end in the hope that if they hit anything in the future the train will win.

    This always has been a furtherance of the conservatives policy of turning public money into private profit.

    The railways are a public service & should be run as such.

    Report on 29 August 2012  |  Love thisLove  1 love
  • jegwe
    Love rating 20
    jegwe said

    The above inflation, sorry, inflationery fare increases (Maggie Thatcher was right on that one) are supposed to provide money for the railway companies to invest in improving the service. Any company will have an investment plan that shows how much it needs in order to make planned investment. Here we have a random amount being paid to the railway companies based on the rate of inflation on a randomly chosen date. There is no business plan and no investment plan.

    Railway companies should be required to publish costed investment plans each year showing improvements and investments and should be publicly accountable for their delivery. The rule should be "no plan, no fare increase", "failed plan, reconsideration of contract and no increase next year", "plan too expensive, Government veto".

    Report on 30 August 2012  |  Love thisLove  1 love
  • Henry-GBG
    Love rating 46
    Henry-GBG said

    I have little sympathy. A major cost here is rolling stock. Had it not been for the mad panic over safety in the period after the Clapham rail accident, the mark 1 slam door stock would still be in service. This would have considerably reduced the costs of the whole operation. It was good for about 45 years from 1975 ie in the normal way of things the last of it would have been withdrawn in 2020. As it was, the last of the stock was taken out of service in 2005, which means that 15 years of service life was lost - nearly one-third of the total.

    There were a variety of enhancements that could have been made to this stock at minimum cost to bring them up to modern standards, plus the option of re-bodying but retaining the most expensive and valuable components ie bogies and other running gear and the electrical equipment which was simple and robust and could have been made to last indefinitely. The new stock, being heavier, also consumes more electricity which has to be paid for.

    One of the reasons why the less expensive option was not chosen was because the oligolopoly of train manufacturers was anxious to sell their very expensive new products and convinced the politicians who make these decisions that trains are like cars and have a fifteen year replacement cycle.

    Things are going to get much worse. The real cost of railway rolling stock went up by a factor of about 6 between 1955 and 1995 and has risen again with the advent of trains like the Pendolino, the Crossrail replacement and the Hitachi Inter City Express which has just been ordered. The latter costs about £2.9 million per vehicle compared with £6000 per vehicle in 1955. Allowing for a factor of 40 for inflation, that makes the new trains ten times as expensive in real terms. They are not ten times more comfortable, or ten times faster or ten times safer. Passengers travelling in 1950s trains normally remark how spacious and comfortable they are in comparison with the new ones.

    Report on 31 August 2012  |  Love thisLove  0 loves
  • Mike10613
    Love rating 600
    Mike10613 said

    When I was a kid there used to be cheap excursions to make the rail networks more economic. It was quite a day out to take a train journey. Now they have electrification, radios and all sorts of gizmos and when I went to a railways station a couple of months ago, all the trains were cancelled. They are only three empty coaches when I do see one. They used to be that full, there would be people standing. It's a little like the High Streets, pedestrianised, with kerbs sticking out into the road and no parking anywhere. They wonder why there are no shoppers...

    I understand they are queuing up for tickets to the Orient Express...

    Report on 05 September 2012  |  Love thisLove  0 loves

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