Government is being criticized as the New Year brings new higher prices on the railways. Some private companies are just trying to strip passengers for all that they've got and that's exactly what's happening. Train fares are rising yet again above inflation and above wages and passengers really can't deal with them anymore. The privatized railway system isn't working well, the general taxpayer who may or may not use the train system is having to pay a lot more into the system to keep it going and what the government is trying to shift that on to the people that actually use the service so they are paying a greater proportion of it.
The cost of running the railway has increased massively
Since privatization, the cost increased massively and that cost is being directly passed on to passengers. What we know is that the railways in other countries like European countries, including France and Germany have a much, much cheaper system.. It's more efficient and that means that passengers pay less. In this country, we're paying sometimes double the ticket prices of European countries precisely because our system is so inefficient. There has been a systematic under-investment in The Railway network for four years and we're trying now to build that back up again. The rail delivery group says ninety-seven percent of every pound of what you pay for your ticket goes to improve services.
Where the other three percent of the Railway budget goes?
The other three percent goes straight into shareholders pockets of the Railways and that's not to mention all of the inefficiency in the wastefulness that happens because we have a fragmented train system. People think that privatization has failed. Fifty-eight percent of people think it's failed and only one percent of people think it's a complete success and that just shows how passengers are so angry about this that they really need change to happen.
It's very disingenuous of the government and the train companies to try to pretend that privatization has worked, when passengers are seeing overcrowded trains and high fares that just keep on increasing. It should be run for passengers and not for profits that can be done just by bringing in train contracts as they come up for renewal.
Actual investment in the railway is not enough as it needs
But in the future, if we have the investment and it's not going into train company shareholder profits, but it's actually going back into the rail network that could be a much better system. The government is highly ideological about this and committed to the idea that private train companies are the right people to be running the railway, but actually we know that there isn't really a market. You don't get any choice about what train you get on so that doesn't really work, but they'll keep on trying that line.
