This is the year to fix rail fares for good – Inside track

This post is by Michael Solomon Williams, head of campaigns, Campaign for Better Transport 

Rail fares have gone up. Again. It happens every year, but it doesn’t need to. With annual rises, we’ve seen the cost of train travel increase at nearly twice the rate of driving, as a 14 year freeze on fuel duty means that driving costs in real terms are at 1990s levels. Little surprise that those who can drive, for all its risks, costs and stress, choose to do so instead of taking a greener, safer, healthier mode of transport.

Year on year rises aren’t the only problem with rail fares. Remember the national outcry when tickets for an Oasis concert were being sold for more than the advertised price and prices went up as time passed? It was all over the press and the public were up in arms. Yet, if you’ve ever tried to travel by train across the UK, you’ll have become desensitised to being treated the same way. A seat might be £10 one day, £30 the next, £80 the day after and £300 a few days later.*

There can be a place for demand-based pricing when it works for the public, such as when hotels reduce room rates at the last minute. But the prices only seem to travel in one direction for Oasis tickets and train travel. Those with urgent needs to travel across the country at short notice, are hit harder than those with the ability to book weeks or months in advance.

Imagine if it cost more to drive a car if you decided to use it on the day, instead of deciding to drive a month earlier? People wouldn’t stand for it. Yet this is the reality of intercity rail travel.

This is a significant year for rail
In 2025, the government’s process of establishing Great British Railways as the new, publicly owned body to run our railways is due to come into legislation. Setting aside the many outstanding questions which need to be answered around the process of rail reform, one thing is clear: this is a chance for a complete reset on rail fares.

Green Alliance’s recent report, Next stop, better rail, found that a ten per cent reduction in rail fares could increase rail use by ten per cent and remove approximately 1.2 billion car miles from the roads every year, reducing CO₂ emissions by around 335,000 tonnes. Could the case be any clearer?

Government would be well advised to heed a recent YouGov poll which showed that support for publicly run railways plummets from 66 per cent to just 6 per cent if it means fares going up. And in our recent poll, 71 per cent of people said that cheaper fares would make them more likely to travel by train.

We need to act now on rail fares
That’s why Campaign for Better Transport is calling for clear, visible, impactful action from the government on fares to get Great British Railways off on the right track.

The government should review the whole range of fares and simplify the booking process where needed, and freeze rail fares while this is done.

But it’s not just about making fares simpler. In places like London which has capped fares for public transport, there’s a huge array of fare types and prices, but as fares are capped, people feel they are being fairly charged. Caps have also worked wonders on our buses across the country with the fare cap (formerly £2, now £3) which we campaigned successfully for. That cap, costing the government only £350m a year, had a huge impact on bus ridership and, we believe, is an outstanding example of the positive impact of government investment in transport fares. We have even heard happy stories of people making the most of the fare cap by taking the bus up and down the country.

Yet there are also numerous stories of people flying to other UK cities via destinations in Europe because it is cheaper than taking the train across the UK. This is crazy in a climate emergency when we know we need to switch more journeys from cars and planes to trains. So why not cap intercity rail fares too? This would deliver huge benefits for passengers struggling with the cost of living, while also helping to reduce carbon emissions and health harming air pollution.

Now is the time to finally act decisively on this issue, to do so for people’s finances, for the country’s prosperity, and for the good of the planet. Let’s fix fares for good.

Campaign for Better Transport has launched a new campaign, Fix Fares for Good, calling for caps on intercity rail, a better deal for passengers and a range of other measures to finally sort out a situation which has gone on for far too long. Find out more, here.

*These are illustrative rather than actual fares, but you don’t have to look far to find real examples.