Fuck Cars
A place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let's explore the bad world of Cars!
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Train tickets are priced to maximise profits for shareholders. For a lot of tickets there's a maximum amount they're allowed to raise them by each year, and you better believe they do exactly that.
They're slowly being renationalised when their contracts run out, which is a start.
A good benchmark for pricing should be "two people taking a train should cost about the same as it would to drive in a car". It's nowhere near that. For most long UK journeys it's cheaper to fly to another European country and fly back to the destination than it is to take a train.
The railways were effectively nationalised in 2020. Since then they have been run as management contracts - with the franchisee being paid a flat rate by the DfT per train, and the DfT keeping the ticket revenue. Indeed, Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern, the largest franchise, had been a management contract as early as 2015.
The average profit margin was around 2% of face value, while around 60% went to network renewal. Under franchising, DfT set the price of 40% of tickets. The remainder, set by franchisees, were often cheaper advance offers.