"The UK has the most expensive train fares in Europe"
- Thread starter teuchter
- Start date
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
A Lumo train, seen recently in testing...
A Lumo train, seen recently in testing...
Is that HS2?
ruffneck23
front left
oh the ironing....
teuchter
je suis teuchter
I'm all for them having their franchise taken over (which actually was going to happen anyway). Not sure how it's relevant to this thread though. If people think that the reason fares are expensive is down to financial irregularities with the operating companies, then that's quite a coup for the government.
So change it
Difficult to know which thread to put this in, so I’ve gone for this one.
I listen to the Freakonomics podcast because it’s frequently fascinating despite being fully and unashamedly embedded in a neoliberal worldview. The latest one looks at whether public transport should be completely free at the point of use. They look at all the economic arguments (such as the cost savings versus fares), social arguments (such as the fact that fares are effectively a regressive tax), effectiveness arguments (such as service elasticity) and examples where it has been done.
The conclusion from this US-based and US-worldview podcast is, surprisingly, it’s almost certainly best to make public transport fare-free, at least for services not used by rich commuters and quite possibly universally.
Give it a listen.
(NB: there is also a side-order of suggesting that also/instead, the cost of car driving should be much higher to reflect its externalities.)
I listen to the Freakonomics podcast because it’s frequently fascinating despite being fully and unashamedly embedded in a neoliberal worldview. The latest one looks at whether public transport should be completely free at the point of use. They look at all the economic arguments (such as the cost savings versus fares), social arguments (such as the fact that fares are effectively a regressive tax), effectiveness arguments (such as service elasticity) and examples where it has been done.
The conclusion from this US-based and US-worldview podcast is, surprisingly, it’s almost certainly best to make public transport fare-free, at least for services not used by rich commuters and quite possibly universally.
Give it a listen.
Should Public Transit Be Free? - Freakonomics
Should Public Transit Be Free? - Freakonomics
freakonomics.com
(NB: there is also a side-order of suggesting that also/instead, the cost of car driving should be much higher to reflect its externalities.)
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teuchter
je suis teuchter
Although I tend to argue that it's not necessarily true that the UK has the most expensive train fares in Europe, if the government gets away with changing our fare structure in a way that is currently proposed, I would probably have to review my position.
Explained in this thread:
www.urban75.net
Explained in this thread:
The proposed removal of affordable, flexible rail tickets in the UK. Don't let them get away with it!
As of this week, LNER are "piloting" a new fare structure on their main routes (London to Newcastle and Edinburgh). TLDR: they are removing off-peak tickets and replacing them with a new kind of advance ticket with no guarantee of availability and no price cap. I've put that bit in bold...
www.urban75.net
T & P
|-o-| (-o-) |-o-|
All aboard the Gravy Express 
www.theguardian.com
Profits of UK’s private train-leasing firms treble in a year
More than £400m paid in dividends in 2022-23 while rest of railway faced cuts and salary freezes
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
"profit margins rose to 41.6% in 2022-23" - ffs
Chilli.s
mingling jets and statuettes
And this is the simple reason why train travel is so shit
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