A low-fare rail revolution is best way to cut car usage

As fare increases drive passengers away, Simon Calder asks if the government really is committed to cutting pollution

- Simon Calder

Train tickets in England and Wales cost 4.6 per cent more than they did last week. After I wrote about the rise, Michelle Hockley was prompted to ask: Why a huge hike in prices when we claim we want to curb traffic pollution and protect the environment?”

Britain is not alone in having some very high fares. Nor are we unique in suffering chronically unreliable trains. And other countries also subsidise their railways to the tune of billions of pounds each year. But no other nation combines all three characteristics quite like the UK.

Routinely, one in 25 trains is cancelled; northwest England is particularly prone to axed departures. Taxpayers, many of whom never go near a train, pump £12.5bn a year (or £400 per second) to keep the railways sort-of running. Yet, despite the Treasury’s munificence, fares in England and Wales are rising faster than inflation.

By normal political standards, transport secretaries tend to have brief lifespans; five different ministers have held the role in the UK in the past 30 months. Such a short tenure bestows at least one benefit: mercifully, these women and men need not endure responsibility for the excruciating conundrum of the railway for long.

The fare increase certainly does not make the government look determined to shift people from road to rail in pursuit of net zero targets.