The Great New Year Transport Robbery

This January will see rail fares rise by an average of 8% and some as high as 13% - That's daylight robbery for most passengers as season tickets rise by hundreds of pounds more each year and walk up fares reach eye watering levels. We need affordable fares, not day light robbery. Worse of all this Government sanctioned stealth tax is set to continue for the next four years - a wallet busting price hike! For many in the workforce and education who commute this will be a tax too far on employment and on education. Indeed spin doctors are already on the case and this is publicised not as a “Fare Increase” but merely as a “Fare Revision” or in an attempt at absolute minimalism as “New Fares.” Who can argue with “New Fares” – we were so fed up with those old fares!


Since Boris Johnson was elected Mayor of London bus fares have increased 55% in 3 years

Now there is a further example proposed of the “Hershey Bar Technique” – charging more for less. But this time under the heading of “Red Tape Challenge” the almost invisible “rights” enjoyed by passengers are being eroded further. The ConDem Coalition government has signalled its intentions by publishing the latest in its series about the Red Tape Challenge which is currently focused on Rail and Maritime. There are several areas of concern but one that applies to passengers, workers and communities appears under the section Rail Transport: Fares and Licensing at:

http://www.redtapechallenge.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/rail-transport-fares-and-licensing/

If you follow the link you will see a box on the left hand side that lists legislation that the ConDem Coalition government evidently considers to be red tape.

What is the Red Tape Challenge?

The government has a policy to reduce what they regard as red tape because it allegedly hurts business and, they claim, does real damage to our economy. Whilst in marginal cases this may be true, in reality what the Red Tape Challenge is about is reducing business regulation in a variety of areas so that companies can maximise profits either:

1. At the expense of workers’ employment rights, including pensions and safety, or

2. by removing passenger rights as demonstrated by the inclusion of the National Conditions of Carriage and the Ticketing & Settlement Agreement. The Rail Fares and Licensing issues clearly have an impact on both passengers and workers:

The National Conditions of Carriage gives passengers some protection around ticketing and as you will see from the Red Tape Challenge link above, a number of people have already added their comments in this area. However, it is with regard to the Ticketing and Settlement Agreement (TSA) that it is also regarded as Red Tape and the government is trying to change it drastically to attack the scant “rights” passengers have.



The McNulty Report, published in May 2011 recommended that there should be either “amendment or removal by the DfT of the obligations in the TSA relating to ticket office opening hours.” The government's formal response to the McNulty Report has been delayed into the New Year but by the inclusion of the TSA in the Red Tape Challenge it appears to be signalling its intentions.

The TSA is important because Schedule 17 stipulates that if a train operating company wants to change the opening hours of a ticket office – or simply close it altogether – it must carry out a three week stakeholder consultation via the passenger watchdogs, Passenger Focus and London Travel Watch. This means it must ask for the views of the local communities that will be affected by the proposal.

There have been a number of examples of consultations where a combination of groups and individuals have successfully campaigned to keep ticket offices open because of the service that they provide to local communities, not to mention to protect the jobs of rail workers. One of the most recent – and high profile – was London Midland’s plans to close or amend the opening hours of virtually all of its ticket offices but which resulted in over 18,000 objections from members of the public.



The TSA's three week public consultation is a very short period but if Schedule 17 of the TSA is withdrawn, there will be no public consultation at all when ticket offices are shut or their hours reduced. This will mean that communities up and down the country will be presented with a fait accompli as commercial companies put profits before public services. On my own line to Aylesbury it would mean station ticket offices at Stoke Mandeville, Wendover and Great Missenden would be closed.
Against this backdrop, there is a very real threat which comes from the recommendation in the McNulty Report that the ticket offices on all 600+ Category E stations should be shut – and the opening hours on another 300 ticket offices on Category D stations should be reduced.


Stoke Mandeville is one of 600+ stations which could have its ticket offices closed without consultation after the McNulty Report

Please click on the link above and fill in the box that appears to let the government know that you object to any change to Schedule 17 of the Ticketing and Settlement Agreement because stakeholder (public) consultation must be kept. It is a form of democracy that the government wants to remove but why should they?

You have until Thursday 8th December to participate so please hurry.

And when you have done that, please tells Together for Transport by e-mailing;

rob@togetherfortransport.org

What else can you do?

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Great Train Fare Robbery

The two and a half desperadoes

Today Tuesday 22nd November Transport Together supporters across the country spread the word about the campaign for affordable fares with protests and leaflet drops at mainline stations. This January will see rail fares rise by an average of 8% and some as high as 13% - That's daylight robbery for most passengers as season tickets rise by hundreds of pounds more each year and walk up fares reach eye watering levels. We need affordable fares, not day light robbery. Worse of all this Government sanctioned stealth tax is set to continue for the next four years - a wallet busting price hike!



Tens of thousands of Wild West- style "wanted" posters featuring David Cameron, George Osborne and Nick Clegg, were today handed out at mainline stations across London. Given to peak time commuters arriving at Victoria, Waterloo, Euston, King's Cross and Liverpool Street stations, they launched the start of an intensified campaign against January's fare increases.

Commuter fares will rise by an average of eight per cent - though many increases on busy routes serving the capital will be in double figures, adding hundreds of pounds to the cost of season tickets. The rail companies, who make millions of pounds' profit, have been given permission to increase fares by three per cent above RPI - currently running at five per cent - for each of the next three years. It could add up to 25 per cent to peak-time fares.



The posters were produced by the TSSA transport union and backed by pressure groups including the Campaign for Better Transport. TSSA leader Manuel Cortes said: "It is simply outrageous that passengers who rely on rail to get to work should be held to ransom every year by ministers. "Here we are in the worst recession in living memory and passengers are expected to find huge sums of money when their pay is being frozen or hardly rising at all."

Adding to the pressure this letter appeared in today’s Guardian Newspaper supporting the campaign.

Fares in London just keep going up (Report, 18 November). Instead of debating how much they should go up, let's prove things can be different by cutting them. Since 2008, thanks to the Tory mayor of London, a single bus fare has risen by 56%. A zone 1-6 Travelcard is up 22%. But every year the mayor raises far more money from Londoners' fares than his own budgets say he needs. In the last year alone, the unplanned operating surplus was £728m. The mayor should be putting that money back into people's pockets. With VAT, inflation, student fees and unemployment all up, ordinary people are feeling the pinch. London already has the highest cost of living in Britain. Fairer fares would relieve some of the pressure on Londoners and put money back into the economy. Ken Livingstone is proposing a 5% cut in fares to be introduced in autumn 2012. We back a fares cut for Londoners and call for a halt to endless above-inflation rises.

Jarvis Cocker, Benjamin Zephaniah, Len McCluskey General secretary, Unite the Union, Billy Hayes General secretary, CWU, Owen Jones, Zoe Williams



At a time when economic activity has slumped and the economy is flat lining these inflation busting increases on public transport are a tax on jobs and education. Many people are being forced to change jobs because they can’t afford the train fares. At a time of economic hardship public transport should be part of the plan to help people find work not a stealth tax hitting people already hurting. If you agree that trains shouldn't just be a luxury for the rich and that they should be affordable for all; then get involved to help stop this Great Train Fares Robbery.

Here is the campaign website;

http://togetherfortransport.org/fares