Tag: rail fares

• Rail delivery shambles continues

  The shambles that is the rollout of contactless payments to rail stations in the South East outside London continues with a programme that should have been completed two years ago still less than half way through and no confirmation of the next steps.

  I have been reporting this issue for years and it’s going from worse to worser.

  In January of 2025, I reported that the delayed delivery of contactless to 47 stations the following month was due complete the first phase (53 stations) of a programme covering a total of 233 stations.

  This first phase was due to have been done by the end of the 2022-23 financial year, with a revised date of December 2023, with the remaining 180 stations upgraded by the end of 2024.

  This is all based on a paper from Transport of London (TfL), which is delivering the programme as it depends on its technology.

  

  By November 2025, the DfT was promising the delivery of 50 more stations the following month, but was unable to give a completion date for the programme, although it did say that it expected to announce further stations for delivery mid 2026 “in due course”.

  But the following month the Rail Delivery Group (RDG) reported:

  From 14 December 2025, pay as you go (PAYG) with contactless cards and devices will be available to customers at another 30 National Rail stations in South-East England.
  
  PAYG contactless will be rolled out to a further 20 stations, including Stansted and Southend airports, on Greater Anglia route during Summer 2026 after issues were identified in testing.

  The following explanation was given:

  (more…)

  2026.09.25

• Not us, guv (unless it suits us)

  A parliamentary answer from a transport minister has highlighted the government’s impotence – or reluctance to intervene – over hikes to unregulated rail fares, even by nationalised rail companies.

  LibDem MP Roz Savage asked the transport secretary:

  what assessment her Department has made of the potential impact of increasing Advance rail fares on passengers who commute two or three days per week.

  It’s not clear whether she was asking about actual increases or planned increases, but (very) junior transport minister Keir Mather replied:

  Advance fares are not regulated by the Government and are managed on a commercial basis by train operators. They are priced according to demand for a particular service, and their price and availability can vary depending on the route, date and time of travel, and when the ticket is purchased.

  All of which is true but it studiously avoids answering the question. We might assume that the Department for Transport has not made any assessment of the potential impact of any increases on part-time commuters.

  

  It is basically saying that unregulated fares are not its problem.

  But hang on a minute. Last year the DfT announced:

  Rail passengers in the North to benefit from simpler fares and cheaper tickets thanks to public ownership
  
  Passengers in the North of England can benefit from cost and carbon savings through a new customer initiative that expands the availability of advance tickets across government owned train operators.
  
  Rail minister, Lord Peter Hendy, said: “This is exactly the type of collaborative work public ownership enables, allowing us to put passengers first by making train travel simpler and more affordable.”
  
  The move is part of a wider effort to make rail travel more attractive, affordable, and sustainable – and shows how public ownership can deliver real benefits for passengers.

  Admittedly, making more advance tickets available (i.e. on journeys with more than one operator) is not the same as controlling their prices, but there is an obvious contradiction in claiming credit for cheaper fares as a benefit of public ownership and saying that higher fares, even from nationalised firms, are not your responsibility.

  2026.09.09