FARE RISE RIP OFF

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: january 2015 :: RMTnews 8 Campaigners protested across the country in the New Year against fare increases of up to 2.5 per cent and asked passengers to contact their MPs to demand an affordable railway under public ownership. Since 2010 fares have risen over two and half times faster than wages, and the average season ticket has gone up by around 27 per cent, on average £600 in just five years. This recent rise, though ‘capped’ at the level of inflation, makes already skyrocketing fare prices higher still and adds to the squeeze on living standards. Research by Action for Rail has revealed that passengers using the UK’s privatised rail network spend substantially more of their wages getting to work than any other country in Europe. The analysis gives the example of a UK worker on an average salary who is now spending 17 per cent of their monthly wages on a £391 monthly season ticket from Brighton to London. However, over in Europe workers making similar journeys in Germany spent nine per cent of their salary on train fares, in France 12 per cent and in Spain and Italy just six per cent. RMT has published figures which showed that UK taxpayers’ subsidy to the railways, on top of fares, totalled just over £4 billion in 2012/13. Last year the Office for Rail Regulation (ORR) revealed that despite receiving £4 billion in subsidies train operators had paid more than £200 million in dividends to their shareholders. Three train operators – Virgin, Northern Rail and Transpennine – handed almost £100 million to shareholders after receiving more than £1 billion in government subsidies, including their portion of the grant to Network Rail. Northern Rail, a joint venture between Serco and Dutch state rail subsidiary Abellio, paid £36 million in dividends with subsidies totalling £713 million. Transpennine returned £21 million in dividends to owners First Group and Keolis, having received £52 million in franchise payments from the government, which also paid £145 million in track grants. Meanwhile East Coast, the intercity service run by state- owned Directly Operated Railways, made a net payment of £1 6million to the government, returning £203 million in franchise payments against a £187 million track subsidy. RMT general secretary Mick Cash said that, as the travelling public gear up for the new year fares hike, the union was blowing away the myth that the extra cash was invested back into services. “The reality is that it combines with taxpayer subsidies to fuel a £4 billion privatised rail rip-off that is a one-way ticket to the bank for the train companies. “The scandal of the British people paying the highest fares in Europe to travel on clapped- out and overcrowded trains will be compounded by the new year average rise – an increase which dwarfs average pay increases and which will hit the poorest the hardest,” he said. FARE RISE RIP OFF Campaigners start New Year with protests demanding an affordable railway under public ownership