RESCUE PUBLIC TRANSPORT

RMT helpline 0800 376 3706 :: september 2020 :: RMTnews 10 In order to recover from this pandemic and the resulting economic crisis, Britain is going to desperately need its railways and buses. We’re going to need them to ensure against a reversion to car travel that damages our environment and congests our roads and cities. Already transport statistics show that numbers for car travel and freight carried by HGVs and LGVs have bounced back, while rail travel languishes below 20 per cent of its figures for last year. That’s another environmental time bomb we really don’t need. We’re going to need rail to address transport inequalities in our society. Around 20 per cent of the population does not own a car and many communities are almost entirely dependent on public transport and connectivity for any quality of life. We’re going to need our railways to support economic recovery, and they can be a huge engine of recovery themselves. HS2, the genuine reversal of Beeching cuts and the return of a properly phased and funded electrification programme to decarbonise passenger and freight transport can generate economic activity and employment for tens of thousands of people. But we have to be realistic that this can’t be achieved on the basis of the commercial model that’s dominated the last 30 years of transport policy. The fantasy was that fare box revenue could be made to pay for operating costs, while the public supported investment in infrastructure. It was never true and subsidies to the train operating companies just kept on growing. The coronavirus pandemic has killed this delusion for good. Passenger numbers are likely to be suppressed for years, not months and for many people, working patterns may change permanently. So the funding model for railways must change too. Rail now needs sustained public support and investment that recognises transport as a public good. The models for how to do this are already out there. RMT and the rail unions supported research into one such model back in 2012, with the Rebuilding Rail report, and RMT welcomed the Labour Party and Andy McDonald’s alternative white paper in April this year. Both offer a route map for a future railway. Tragically, this government is busily rearranging the deckchairs in the interests of the handful of big businesses that profit out of the railways. In the run-up to the belated announcement of a lockdown, people — on government advice — stopped using trains and the train operating companies demanded help. “Senior industry sources” were quoted as saying that fairly drastic measures might be required for train companies to survive. EMAs Terrified that it was going to have to nationalise not just Northern and London North Eastern Railway but the whole network, the government devised its emergency measures agreements (EMAs), whereby it took on all the costs of running the railway and agreed to pay the train operating companies a 2 per cent management fee to continue running their franchises. RMT welcomes that state has stepped in to provide funding to keep the railways moving, as this was vital step to keeping essential goods RMT assistant general secretary Mick Lynch argues that the private sector have been skimming off public transport funding to maintain profits RESCUE PUBLIC TRANSPORT RMT assistant general secretary Mick Lynch