Date published: 2006/05/19
The BBC says:
Passengers are being driven off the railways thanks to the "exorbitant" fares charged by train operators.
The cross-party Commons transport committee said passengers were "held to ransom" by companies which tried to "see how much we can get away with".
They criticised government complacency for failing to ensure value for money.
The Association of Train Operating Companies (Atoc) said the report was "over the top" and cutting fares would mean a "huge increase in subsidy".
A total of £87m a week of public funds are poured into the rail network.
...
MPs were particularly critical of steep rises in the cost of open tickets bought on the day of travel which, it said, were now "absurdly high"."The 'see how much we can get away with' attitude of operators has put the thumbscrews on those passengers who have no option but to travel on peak-hour trains using fully flexible open fares," the report said.
The "deeply fragmented and highly complex" array of tickets offered by companies were an "insult" to passengers, it added.
"It is unacceptable that in order to purchase a rail ticket passengers are faced with up to a dozen different products, most of which have subtly different conditions and restrictions," it said.
And it said companies appeared to exploit the Christmas holiday rush to maximise profits.
The decision to allow multiple train operators was crazy, and the ridiculously complicated fare structures is one of the results of that. But the fact that rail services receive a whacking great public subsidy (even ignoring the large indirect ones) means that the "exorbitant" fares are obviously not quite exorbitant enough. Why is it that the people who live and work in Cambridge are forced to subsidise (the more highly paid) people who live in Cambridge and work in London? The more that rail fares are subsidised, the more it encourages people to live further and further from work.
_________________________________________________________
All material not included from other sources is copyright cambridge2000.com.
For further information or questions email: info [at] cambridge2000 [dot] com
(replace "[at]" with "@" and "[dot]" with ".").