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UK commuters spend three times more on rail than European neighbours

UK commuters are spending up to three times more of their salary than their contemporaries in other European countries, the TUC claims.

The union, which is pushing for the UK’s rail network to be made public, say commuters in France, Germany, Spain and Italy are enjoying cheaper fares.

The study compared average earnings with season tickets covering similar commuter routes across Europe, and the union released its findings today as regulated rail fares increase by between 3.1% and 5.1%.

Campaign group Transport for Quality of Life (TFQL) suggest that extra costs of over £1bn per year are being incurred through a combination of debt write-offs, dividend payments to private investors and various administrative and legal costs.

The group suggest that fare cuts of up to 18 per cent could be achieved if these costs were eliminated by bringing services back within a nationally-integrated railway under public ownership.

TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady said: “Rail passengers and taxpayers are being poorly served by a privatised rail service that has failed to deliver any of the efficiency, investment and cost savings that privatisation cheerleaders promised.

“While the shareholders of the private train operating companies are doing well for themselves on the back of massive public subsidies, passengers are paying the highest share of their wages on rail fares in Europe. Rail passengers must wonder why they can’t have the same cheap and more efficiently run state rail services that exist elsewhere in Europe.”

RMT general secretary Bob Crow added: “2014 is all set to be another year of racketeering and greed on Britain’s privatised railways.

“Passengers will continue to pay the highest fares in Europe to travel on creaking, overcrowded trains where raw sewage is dumped on the tracks because the private operators will not stump up for tanks and the staff to empty them. That is a sickening indictment on our privatised railways as we head into the New Year.

“The only solution – and one that’s opposed by all our main political parties – is total renationalisation and the return of our railways to complete public control.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .