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‘We won’t price people off HS2’ – Alison Munro

The managing director in charge of developing HS2, Alison Munro, has said that fares will be “broadly the same as on the existing railway” because it “doesn’t really make sense to try to price people off HS2”.

Munro was a keynote speaker at RTM’s High Speed 2 The Northern Hub dinner in Manchester last night, and also took part in a Q&A panel session afterwards.

(Above: BBC transport correspondent Richard Westcott, host of RTM's High Speed 2 The Northern Hub Dinner, asks Alison Munro about HS2 ticket prices. Photo: Peter Alvey, Alvey & Towers)

She said: “One of our key strategic goals now is to design for passengers: everything we do is designed with the passenger in mind, for a fantastic experience right from beginning to end. We’ve got the opportunity to do that holistically, the opportunity to design our stations to provide a really good passenger experience – getting through the station and arriving at the right place on the train.

“The other key aspect is reliability: our railway will be extremely reliable. We hope to reach world-class levels in terms of reliability.”

Asked specifically about price – whether tickets will cost more – she said: “No, the current approach is that the fares will be broadly the same as on the existing railway. There’s a good reason for that: we will be investing in a massive addition to capacity and we want to make sure the railway is used. Part of that is taking people off the existing railway and freeing up capacity there.

“It doesn’t really make sense to try to price people off HS2; we want to have fares that will attract people onto HS2.

“It’s a railway for everyone,” she added, when asked if the emphasis was on business-people.

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