A recent surrvey by Action for Rail in the UK found that a commute into London by rail costs an average of 13 % of average monthly pay. Travelling the same distance into Rome costs only 2% of an Italian salary. Even in costly Paris a commute is 30% less than the equivalent British cost.
British price rises are pegged to the retail prices index, rather than the consumer price index, which results in higher rises. Thus, privatisation has left the country with sky high ticket costs, overcrowded trains and an aging infrastructure. And now Southern Railway, which brings tens of thousands of commuters into London every working day, is on strike, as I understand it, because the company want to dispense with the train guards, thus making even more profit. The government, they that originally privatised a public utility) stands – by – doing – no- thing.
In every privatised industry you find the same thing, with the possible exception of airlines. the traveller is left paying for the profits of private companies and the exorbitant salaries of the CEO’s, and are worse off than ever before. I don’t like accusing people of scams; however,the beneficiaries of this purely political privatising are friends and contributors to a particular party. As they say in the army, “no names, no pack drill”.
Were Epicurus alive today he would spot corruption in an instant. Corruption is un-Epicurean because there is no level playing field and the ordinary citizen pays the price.
Its worth pointing out that peak time fares and the price of season tickets are regulated by the government. If the government wanted to lower fares, it could do so today. There are understandable reasons why they don’t:
British railways have suffered from decades of underinvestment. During the days of British Rail (established during WW2), use of the railways declined rapidly. Like in the US, the car was seen as the future. Hence the Beeching Report, which put roughly two-thirds of all rail lines out of use. In particular, investment in the railways was cut under the Thatcher years; Thatcher saw the car as a symbol of individual self-reliance and freedom from communitarian dependency (though the state invested massively in the motorways during this period.)
So to compensate for this underinvestment, fares had to rise rapidly during the privatisation years. Although the Labour government under Blair and Brown increased rail spending and the private operators contributed to improvements, the railways were not as high a priority as the NHS or education. When the Conservatives returned to power in 2010, the railways were still in a dire state.
The Coalition government wanted to improve the railways, but it also perceived the need to cut spending as part of its deficit reduction ambitions. Therefore, fares would be increased to compensate for a cut in state subsidy, whilst maintaining (if not increasing) investment from the Labour years. The Coalition was also reluctant to raise taxes to pay for the railways, because this would benefit rail users (a small and generally wealthy minority) at the expense of the general population.
The current government gets a lot wrong when it comes to rail policy. HS2 is a white elephant that will do little to improve the journeys of most passengers, nor does it really address the North-South divide (one of the justifications for it.) The program should be cancelled, with the money used to upgrade existing lines. Chris Grayling is also wrong in his opposition to London suburban railways being taken over TfL on the basis that it would hand control of the railways to Labour. Businesses and passengers alike strongly support the proposed TfL takeover, as I suspect do most people living in Grayling’s constituency; Epsom is very heavily dependent on suburban railways.
Having said that, the government are right not to reduce fares. Only 3% of the cost of your ticket is profit for the railway companies, and that money is needed for future investments, even if the companies were nationalised. Even then, most profits are made from off-peak fares, which companies can price strategically to prevent underuse of less popular trains and overcrowding on more popular ones. The railways are still in desperate need of an upgrade; cutting fares would deprive the industry of the funds necessary to do this. Moreover, unlike the days of British Rail, rail usage is rising rapidly, much faster than population growth, and certainly faster than the growth of the working age population. If fares were too high, people would use trains less. In my opinion, a more urgent problem is poor punctuality. If the government wants to subsidise transport, it should subsidise buses: bus users tend to be either poor people, students or pensioners. Conversely, its worth noting that nearly all of the richest towns in the UK being rail commuter towns (St Albans, Esher, Beaconsfield, Sevenoaks, Weybridge, Gerrards Cross etc…) http://www.cityam.com/240073/do-you-live-in-these-areas-paying-the-most-income-tax-in-britain
(Sorry for such a long post. I was a train commuter for two years so I’m very opinionated on this subject)
Well, what I gather from your comment, which is very clear, is that on this subject I was a bit too ideological, not to say out of date! The issue is much more complex than I imagined. The reason for raising it is the intense frustration of my oldest son, who has to commute every day from Oxted into London, and is having a horrible time with endless strikes. People are having to rent expensive accommodation in Central London to avoid being late for work. Dreadful! But thank you for the clarification. Excellent work!
Oxted is run by the same company as the people who ran my train to college. They’re currently hit by continuous striking, so honestly I feel his pain!