Passengers rail at soaring train fares

Demonstrators protest against rises in the cost of rail travel outside Waterloo station in London

Commuters yesterday reacted with outrage as rail bosses said they would be hit with record season ticket rises of up to £560 in January — with more to come.
Half a million people will face an average 8% increase — the biggest since privatisation in 1995 — raising fears that they will force some commuters to abandon working in London.
For long-distance commuters, who already endure the most expensive rail travel in Europe, the rises will increase the annual cost of the journey to work by hundreds of pounds.
For those travelling from Swindon, the fare will rise by almost £562 from £7,024 to £7,585.92. It could hit £10,000 within three years.
Workers coming in from Norwich will have to find an extra £523.20 a year.
Commuters travelling to St Pancras International on the high-speed line from Kent have endured several years of above-inflation rises.
Nigel Buller, 52, an architect from Gravesend, said: “It is already ludicrously expensive. It is a very good service but it is more expensive than it should be.”
Siewli McGowan, from Palmers Green, who works for a health company in Folkestone, said: “I think it is very unfair. At the end of the day the customers lose out, they are jacking up the prices more and more. It is £38.30 for a return ticket and that is a lot of money for a day trip.”
The unprecedented leap in fares was the result of a change in the government’s formula for setting “regulated” fares combined with the current high level of inflation.
Train operators are allowed to increase most ticket prices, including season tickets by 3% more than the Retail Prices Index in July, which was yesterday revealed to be 5%.
The formula was changed from 1% over RPI by George Osborne in last October’s spending review to push the burden of paying for improvements to the railways on to passengers.
Some tickets will go up by even more than 8%, possibly by as much as 13%, as train operators are allowed to vary ticket prices by up to 5% on selected routes.
The announcement triggered protests outside the Surrey home of Transport Secretary Philip Hammond and at Waterloo mainline station where placards accused the LibDems of “backtracking” on their election manifesto pledge to cut fares.
Ten women from the Climate Rush pressure group waited outside Hammond’s home — but he wasn’t there. Instead, activist Tamsin Omond pasted a bill for £3,684 — said to reflect a 28% increase on the cost of his chauffeur-driven journeys over the next four years — on his front door.