Campaigners stage protest over 8% rise in rail fares

Rex

Fairs Fares Now campaigners, led by the Campaign for Better Transport, staged a protest outside London's Waterloo station today against a proposed 8% hike in rail fares in the new year.

The increase in regulated rail fares, which includes season and saver tickets, is calculated by adding 3% to the retail prices index (RPI) rate of inflation for July which was unchanged at 5%, according to the Office of National Statistics. However, the 8% rise can be taken as an average meaning that some rail companies could increase fares by as much as 13%.

For the last few years, the formula for fares increases has generally been RPI plus 1% but it will remain at 3% for the next three years to finance planned upgrades to the rail network.

Shadow Transport Secretary, Maria Eagle, told protesters at Waterloo that inflation-busting rail increases will hurt the UK economy.

The campaign is back by the RMT transport union, which said in a commissioned report that rail privatisation had "bled £6.6bn out of the rail industry since 1997" and that future bleed would cost £6.7bn over the next 10 years.

Edward Welsh, corporate affairs director at the Association of Train Operating Companies (Atoc), told the BBC that all the extra money raised will go to the government and not train companies.


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