30.03.17
ORR: Rail fares rise below inflation for second successive year
Rail fares have risen below inflation for the second year in a row, new statistics released by the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) have today revealed.
The news follows a radical overhaul of ticketing that was introduced at the start of February to end the need for ‘split ticketing’ by offering passengers a best-value end to end through fare.
On average, rail fares in Britain increased by 1.2% in January 2017 compared with a 2.6% rise in the Retail Prices Index, representing a decrease in real terms of 1.4%.
The average change in the price of regulated and unregulated fares between January 2016 and January 2017 was found to be 1.8% and 0.8% respectively, as regulated fares increased below the cap set by the government of 1.9% in July 2016.
Anytime and off-peak tickets account for over 54% of revenue and they recorded the highest increase in fares among all ticket types, increasing by 2.1% and 2.0% respectively.
In terms of ticket type, the only ticket type which saw a decrease was advance tickets, where average prices fell by 2.3% from January 2016.
When looking at the data by type of travel, it was found that long distance journeys had only gone up by 0.5% since 2016, whilst London and the south east recorded a 1.5% rise.
Since 1995, the ORR reported huge real-terms rises in ticket prices. On average, fares had increased by 121.3% between 1995 and 2017.
Advance fares account for the largest proportion of tickets sold and the average price paid for those fell by 3.5%. This helped to curb the overall increase despite all other ticket types in this sector reporting an increase.
Accounting for 45.9% of all revenue, the London and south east sector is the main driver of overall price change, followed by the long distance sector which accounts for 39.4% of all revenue. However, between January 2016 and 2017 fare increases of 2.1% in the Regional sector outstripped the increases in London and south east (1.5%) and long distance (0.5%) sectors.
Top Image: Lauren Hurley, PA wire
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