Blog - February 2009
Passenger Focus, the rail consumer watchdog, has published a study of UK rail fares and services which concludes that the price of commuting to London is high in comparison with other European countries. The price of commuting to other major cities in Great Britain is lower than to London, but in most cases is still more expensive than commuting to the principal city in other European countries. The Financial Times’ headline was ‘Trains cost 50% more than in the rest of Europe’.
The proportion of household expenditure in Britain that is devoted to travel has held steady at about 16% for over 20 years. This is at the top end of the range of 10-15% that applies to most developed countries (3-5% for low income countries). This high figure for Britain reflects our relatively high tax on road fuel and our relatively low subsidies for public transport – hence our high rail fares.
Rail passengers are reported as dissatisfied with value for money. Does this matter? Arguably not, given the growth in rail travel, and bearing in mind that if we subsidised rail travel more, there would be consequences elsewhere – higher taxes or less spent on other public services.
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