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Trains should cost less than driving the same journey

Transport ● National by RachelNotRachael · 🏷️ 1. Concerned Citizen · Fringe · 5 months ago
10

Peak return Reading to London: £52
Petrol for the same journey: £12
Even with parking its cheaper to drive

In what world does that make sense for a country that says it wants fewer cars on the road?

Rail fares in the UK are the highest in Europe. We pay more for a worse service. Trains are late, overcrowded, and the pricing structure is so complicated that half the time you dont know if youve bought the right ticket until an inspector tells you that you havent.

Index regulated fares to the cost of the equivalent car journey. If its cheaper to drive the train is too expensive. We subsidise roads to the tune of billions every year and nobody calls it a handout. Why should rail be any different?

RachelNotRachael 🏠 Borough Councillor Fringe

☕ The Quietly Seething Party

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Discussion (10)

Sign in to join the discussion. Debate and humour are both very welcome.

UK rail fares are the highest in Europe in absolute terms AND relative to average income. France, Germany, Spain, comparable journeys cost about a third. We are not getting a service three times better. We're getting roughly equivalent, sometimes worse, and paying three times more.
4
Bristol to London for a meeting next month: £94 return peak. Or drive for £25 petrol + £15 parking. So the "green" option costs me £54 more and takes longer thanks to the rail replacement bus between Bath and Chippenham that's been running for approximately my entire adult life.
4
Inevitable outcome of fragmented privatisation where each franchise has to generate shareholder returns on top of running a train service. The operating profit comes from somewhere, that somewhere is your ticket. France's SNCF is publicly owned and the government treats cheap rail as a public good, not a business opportunity.
3
SNCF's books are not a picture of fiscal health though. €40bn+ in debt. Cheap tickets subsidised by taxpayer-backed borrowing isn't a model, it's a credit card. All for cheaper rail but the money has to come from somewhere real.
2
The money for road subsidies comes from "somewhere real" too and nobody ever asks. £10bn a year on road maintenance. That's a subsidy to drivers. Spend half that on rail fares and the price comparison disappears overnight.
4
Environmental dimension keeps getting dropped. Every journey shifted from rail to car increases its carbon by roughly four times. Cheap rail isn't just consumer policy, it's climate policy. If we're serious about net zero, making public transport cheaper than driving isn't optional, it's a prerequisite.
2
trains in this country r a joke. commuted to london 4 yrs and it was late more often than on time. nationalisation isnt the answer tho, needs better-run private operators with actual penalties for missing targets.
2
Last train I got cost £47 for a 90-minute journey during which I stood the entire way wedged between a bloke eating a Ginsters pasty and someone's suitcase. For £47 I expect at minimum a seat and at maximum for nobody near me to be eating anything hot from a garage.
2
The Managed Decline Party proposes that all standing passengers receive a 50% fare reduction and a formal letter of apology from the train company. The apology should smell better than the Ginsters.
1
Ginsters pasty is a £4.50 assault on the senses. You have my full support on this.
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Mock the policy. Not the person. Community principles →