Rail fares on commuter routes have the scope to increase by up to 3.2% in January, the government has confirmed, with the cost of some season tickets to rise by hundreds of pounds.
The figure is below the 3.6% increase to regulated fares in January this year, the steepest in five years, but continues the trend of fare increases far outstripping average wage rises.
Rail industry leaders said the fares were “underpinning once-in-a-generation investment” in the railways. The 3.2% ceiling for 2019 fares is based on the July retail price index figure, just released. The Department for Transport notes that “fares do not automatically rise by this figure and are often less”.
Commuters and campaigners intensified calls for a freeze in fares, in a year in which promised improvements to the railway did not materialise, strikes disrupted services and the May timetable change resulted in the cancellation of tends of thousands of trains, particularly across Northern and Govia Thameslink Railway.
The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, said the fare increases were “an insult to everyone who has suffered from the chaos on Britain’s railways” and he reaffirmed his pledge to bring the railway back into public ownership.
Confirmation of the maximum average rise allowed in 2019’s regulated fares came with the publication of July’s inflation figures by the Office of National Statistics. Regulated fares, which cover around 45% of fares on national rail and include season tickets and off-peak returns, are capped at the level of RPI inflation – a measure that is not habitually used and is higher than CPI.
Studies have repeatedly found weekday commuter fares to be significantly higher in Britain than elsewhere in Europe.
Analysis in the 2011 government-commissioned McNulty Value for Money report said fares by distance travelled were about 30% more.
According to a TUC analysis, season ticket fares on city commuter routes can be up to six times more expensive than in France, Germany, Italy or Spain.
However, UK rail services have been faster and more frequent on routes they compared. Broadly, peak intercity fares also tend to be much more expensive in the UK; but advance, off-peak tickets can be much cheaper than abroad.
Off-peak fares bought on the day are similar - but UK tickets are often the same price for a return as a single: an anomaly that means British single fares are typically more expensive, yet returns cheaper than European equivalents.
The transport secretary, Chris Grayling, infuriated unions by suggesting rail fare increases could be pegged to the lower measure of inflation if unions accept the same measure for staff pay. In a letter to the RMT, Aslef, Unite and TSSA unions, Grayling said: “As you will be aware, one of the industry’s largest costs is pay … it is important that pay agreements also use CPI and not RPI in future when it comes to basing pay deals on inflation.”
Unions blame privatisation for escalating rail costs. Mick Cash, the general secretary of the RMT, said: “If Chris Grayling seriously thinks that rail staff are going to pay the price for his rank incompetence and the greed of the private train operating companies then he needs to think again.”
Grayling defended his proposal in BBC interviews on Wednesday morning as “entirely fair” and was “very disappointed” at the reaction from the unions. He said: “My challenge to the unions is let’s get the routine increases down to the lower level of inflation.”
Labour’s shadow transport secretary, Andy McDonald, said Grayling’s “attack on staff pay is, at best, a distraction technique and at worst a recipe for years of industrial action”.
Commuters at King’s Cross station in London were dismayed at the news of further fare rises. Lydia Bolton, 35, of Royston, Hertfordshire, who works part-time in the charity sector and pays £32 a day to travel to work, said: “It’s awful. We don’t know if we’re going to get a pay rise, we’ve got a young child and we have nursery costs. Of course they should freeze fares – it’s insane.”
Philip Doyle, 46, pays almost £300 a month to commute from Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, to work in recruitment. “Fares are ridiculous and the service is a shambles. Last Sunday we went away as a family and when we came back to London there was only one train running in three hours, instead of every 20 minutes on the timetable.”
Rosie Jones, 29, a marketing manager, pays £5,284 for an annual season ticket from Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire. She said the service had recovered since the chaos of May but evening cancellations still often left her waiting at stations or standing on crowded trains: “It doesn’t seem like there’s any added value for the extra money and it seems out of step with other costs.”
The TUC renewed calls for public ownership of rail, with research showing fares have increased at more than double the rate of wages over the last decade. Fares in Britain have risen by 42% since 2008 but average weekly pay has gone up by only 18%, it said, while private firms running the trains paid out at least £165m in dividends to their shareholders last year, when overall taxpayer subsidy to the rail industry reached £3.5bn.
The RPI figure is used to set the maximum increase in regulated fares, which account for around half of all tickets sold – including commuter season tickets, some off-peak long-distance returns and “anytime” tickets in major cities. The increased revenue is factored into rail franchise contracts – although the government says it is up to operators whether they choose to raise fares or not.
Paul Plummer, the chief executive of the Rail Delivery Group, which represents the railway, said: “Fares are underpinning a once-in-a-generation investment plan to improve the railway and politicians effectively determine that season ticket prices should change in line with other day-to-day costs to help fund this.”
• This article was amended on 17 August 2018 to make clear in the story and headline that a 3.2% fare-increase would be the maximum allowed under the capping system linked to July’s RPI figure. Only later in the year will 2019 fares be finalised. The story has also been updated to include a Department for Transport comment.
