Is there a light at the end of the tunnel for commuters?

There’s not much joy from news reports:
the average 4.1 % increase will come in
January 2014 as envisaged including to 6.1%
….. it is the more extreme case of over 9 %
that is to be capped or prohibited as I’m given
to understand.

All in all, not much of a giveaway if anything.

Trains for commuters are actually the most expensive to operate and commuters pay much less per mile than other passengers. However, commuters have rightly been sheltered from the full force of railway economics because (a) they are effectively a captive market and victims of monopoly supply [even where there is a choice of train operator on a route, the fare levels are set by one of them for application to all], and (b) because the alternative – buses or private transport – is not viable for shifting the millions over the distances now involved. I feel a lot more could have been done, and still could be done, to disperse jobs from the metropolitan areas to other towns and cities that have lost employment although I appreciate the difficulties: once people have settled in an area and, with other members of the family, have adapted their work/school/college arrangements to suit that location, firms and other organisations are understandably reluctant to uproot their workforces or to recruit new labour in a different area. However, advantage could be taken of any economic growth, inward investment, or new industries to avoid further concentration where travel-to-work difficulties and expenses are already a serious problem. So many companies claim that they need to be located in London so they are handy for other branches of the same business or to be close to government. The arguments for this are losing their force in the age of immediate global communications. Because, peculiarly, the economics of British railways currently show that unit costs have risen continuously despite massive volume growth, the long-term prospect for commuters is not looking good whatever short-term fix the government applies. Since increasing capacity is almost impossible, reducing demand is the only available option; this can be done [as now] through the price mechanism, or through the dispersal of destinations.

The government’s proposals for more flexibility in ticketing are a very good idea and should lower commuters’ costs while also inducing some changes in work patterns that will spread the demand to other times. The current system is good for when “Mr Brown goes off to town on the 8.21” five days a week, but fewer than 60% of commuters do that these days. And selling long-distance train tickets on a mix-and-match basis so that passengers can choose the best ticket for each leg of the journey should be a good move, although the train operators will no doubt moan about the loss of revenue and want to make it up on the captive side of their business.

Incidentally, Jenny, given all the nasty things you are having to stomach it’s no surprise that your breath is baited [second para], but I expect your breath is actually bated by the gob-smacking nature of the fares rises!