Railways: Fares

(asked on 9th March 2022) - View Source

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment he has made of the effect on (a) passenger numbers and (b) revenue as a result of the 3.8 per cent rise in rail fare prices, implemented on 1 March 2022.


Answered by
Wendy Morton Portrait
Wendy Morton
This question was answered on 15th March 2022

The Department uses recommendations from the Passenger Demand Forecasting Handbook on the relationship between changes to fares and demand and revenues. There are a number of factors which impact revenues, including most notably at the moment the pandemic’s impact on passenger travel.

Whilst the change will affect each passenger slightly differently, we have a number of railcards in place that offer discounts against most rail fares. We have saved a generation of passengers at least a third off their fares through the 16-17 and 26-30 ‘millennial’ railcard and went even further in November 2020 by extending these savings to former servicemen and women through a new Veterans Railcard.

We have protected passengers by delaying these fare rises by two months and, even then, opting for a figure well below current inflation rates.

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