Fare rise will ‘do nothing’ to help the economy, says transport charity

On the day that rail commuters face a 3.8 per cent fare rise – with commuters in the capital hit by a double whammy as bus and tube journeys in the capital go up 4.8 per cent from today – Paul Tuohy, Chief Executive of Campaign for Better Transport, said:

“Today’s fare rise will do nothing to ease the cost-of-living crisis, it will do nothing help to the economy, and it will do nothing to tackle climate change. If this Government is serious about shrinking transport’s carbon footprint and growing the economy, it must do more to address the high cost of public transport by prioritising fares reform, introducing more contactless and PAYG ticketing and providing a better value flexible commuter ticket to cater to the millions of new hybrid workers.”

Campaign for Better Transport has calculated that from today (1 March), the average full-time worker commuting from Brighton into London will have to work until 19 April (seven weeks) just to pay for their annual season ticket. A commuter travelling from York into Leeds will have to work over a month until 5 April (five weeks), while a commuter travelling from Burton on Trent into Birmingham will have to work until 12 April (six weeks).

Last week, a report from Clean Cities Campaign found that UK cities were the most expensive in Europe when it came to public transport. London, Greater Manchester and Birmingham came bottom out of 36 European cities on affordability of public transport with residents being asked to fork out 8-10 per cent of their household budget on monthly travel costs. By contrast, in Oslo, which came top overall in the report, passengers spend just two per cent of their household budget on public transport fares.