Quote:
Originally Posted by OLD BOY
The high fares are due to the government decision to cover the cost of railway modernisation partially through fares charged to the users of the service who will benefit from it.
Charges normally go down rather than up when they are privatised. That’s because the private sector can take a profit from efficiency savings and still have money left for price reductions.
Nationalised industries tend to be very inefficient because the financial discipline just isn’t there and jobsworths are tolerated.
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There's not really much of a link between investment in rail and the fares box. The issues around fares are:
- Very confusing pricing offers.
- Historical fares structure built on BR's approach of having to up prices to reduce demand rather than investing in more capacity. Hence the cost per mile for tickets varies depending on the line used with the East Coast route the most expensive.
- Government decision to increase fares by 1% plus inflation to move cost of railways more towards passengers and away from taxpayers.