Tories doing the urging, aye. That tells you everything you need to know about who the biggest beneficiaries of it were.
Its not often I agree with a Tory but the cunt is right.
Post September 28th, train travel between Gla – Edi will effectively double in price, for a service which is much worse than it was when we last had peak prices- fewer trains which start later and finish earlier.
> The SNP Government say they are desperate to get commuters out of their cars and on to public transport as part of the push to net zero – but doubling the cost of train tickets actively discourages that.
Problem is that we know it wasn’t effective at doing that, existing rail users were making slightly more use, but the effect on car use was negligible.
Tory advocates increased taxation in order to pay for reduced fares, shock. Presumably.
It’s not often that I agree with a Tory.
But as someone who uses the train to commute, peak rail fares an abomination. They are just an excuse to rip off people who are contractually obliged to be at their work place before/for 9:00am.
Fuck peak train fares.
The off-peak fares was always just a bandaid solution to getting people onto the trains over their cars.
We need more frequent more reliable train services that cover more of the places where people commute to.
It shouldn’t take me more than an hour to get to work when it only takes me at most 25 minutes to drive (when the roads are being extremely shit) 15 min on average.
So as with most things in the UK the actual solution is investment in infrastructure, but that’s expensive so will never happen.
Agree most of their advertising effort went into telling people who already use trains!
Ultimately I do share some frustration about transport policy in Scotland – I think that so much of the political attention is focused on trains that buses get way less of a look in, despite being by far the most used form of public transport, and being the most challenging in terms of regulation.
And when it comes to ScotRail in particular, I think this government is far too keen on short term tweaks rather than long term improvements. Fundamentally, mode of travel is usually a long term change, because we make decisions in life based around transport and our access to it. On the whole, people do not choose how to commute to work based on the transport options available – they choose where they can work based on where they can access.
A lot of the complaints regarding the removal of peak fares – that they primarily benefit wealthier passengers – are generally speaking pretty valid at the moment, because you can’t get much behavioural change with just that. The people who would get trains at peak times are, on the whole, people who could afford to do so in the first place.
If you want to enact meaningful behavioural change, it’s the sort of thing that takes time and it’s the sort of thing that takes a much more holistic approach than just tweaking a couple of prices. If you want people to trust a transport network, and make big decisions about their lives based on that transport network, you need a clear track record of reliability, resilience and availability.
It’s funny.
Last wednesday, I took a train from Milan to Como and back (60 mile round trip) and two return tickets cost me £17. The single ticket from Milan to Como was cheaper (£4.25) than a single ticket to commute ten miles from where I live into Glasgow (£4.80).
*One* single ticket from Glasgow to Edinburgh currently costs £16. A peak ticket from Glasgow to Edinburgh this time last year was £28.90, and it’s looking like that price will increase once peak pricing is brought back.
We don’t half get fucked in this country when it comes to the price of public transport.
The price of train tickets is just insane when you compare it to other countries, I went to Hungary recently and what was a three hour train ride was about £12
The price of train tickets is just insane when you compare it to other countries, I went to Hungary recently and what was a three hour train ride was about £12
If they do get reinstated, at least bring back super-offpeak too. Many of my journeys became more expensive after that “off-peak at any time” move.
I think if say you’re on a tight budget, and you have to use a railcard apparently the summer prices with the lower prices have ended, but if you’re travelling during the morning period before the ticket prices are lower, I think it’s not right that you’re charged say £11/£12 when I could get a return for £7.45, I think a single price should be reformed and should be £3.60 or something like that since it’s one way, because there’s no point in buying a single when it’s charged about 7.00 you might as well buy a return for a few pence more the way they’ve got it worked out. I think if they ran their reduction in rail fares once the strikes have been over this may have improved people taking more usage of the trains due to more availability and the timetable having more services
How do the Scottish Tories and others think the extension of the trial should be paid for? What other services should be cut to provide and increased rail subsidy?
At the moment I’m just over £8 a day off peak for a journey that’s less than 30 mins each way. Not extortionate but not that cheap a way to get around.
When this changes to peak it’ll probably be £13-14 a day. That’s quite the hourly rate for each passenger and I’ll likely stop going to the office as much.
Either I lose out in socialising with my colleagues or I lose out in pocket if I do go to the office, neither option is appealing here. I’m still shocked the government have walked this policy back.
At least offer a fuckin railcard for over 30s
Trains are so laughably expensive I can drive my V8 sports car and fuel will still be cheaper than train. The second we take our diesel and it’s two or more of us it just becomes an absolute no brainer. I couldn’t tell you the number of times we thought about taking the train when we go for day trips only to realise it’d cost several times more than driving, how’s the government expecting people to switch to public transport I’m really not sure.
17 comments
Tories doing the urging, aye. That tells you everything you need to know about who the biggest beneficiaries of it were.
Its not often I agree with a Tory but the cunt is right.
Post September 28th, train travel between Gla – Edi will effectively double in price, for a service which is much worse than it was when we last had peak prices- fewer trains which start later and finish earlier.
> The SNP Government say they are desperate to get commuters out of their cars and on to public transport as part of the push to net zero – but doubling the cost of train tickets actively discourages that.
Problem is that we know it wasn’t effective at doing that, existing rail users were making slightly more use, but the effect on car use was negligible.
Tory advocates increased taxation in order to pay for reduced fares, shock. Presumably.
It’s not often that I agree with a Tory.
But as someone who uses the train to commute, peak rail fares an abomination. They are just an excuse to rip off people who are contractually obliged to be at their work place before/for 9:00am.
Fuck peak train fares.
The off-peak fares was always just a bandaid solution to getting people onto the trains over their cars.
We need more frequent more reliable train services that cover more of the places where people commute to.
It shouldn’t take me more than an hour to get to work when it only takes me at most 25 minutes to drive (when the roads are being extremely shit) 15 min on average.
So as with most things in the UK the actual solution is investment in infrastructure, but that’s expensive so will never happen.
Agree most of their advertising effort went into telling people who already use trains!
Ultimately I do share some frustration about transport policy in Scotland – I think that so much of the political attention is focused on trains that buses get way less of a look in, despite being by far the most used form of public transport, and being the most challenging in terms of regulation.
And when it comes to ScotRail in particular, I think this government is far too keen on short term tweaks rather than long term improvements. Fundamentally, mode of travel is usually a long term change, because we make decisions in life based around transport and our access to it. On the whole, people do not choose how to commute to work based on the transport options available – they choose where they can work based on where they can access.
A lot of the complaints regarding the removal of peak fares – that they primarily benefit wealthier passengers – are generally speaking pretty valid at the moment, because you can’t get much behavioural change with just that. The people who would get trains at peak times are, on the whole, people who could afford to do so in the first place.
If you want to enact meaningful behavioural change, it’s the sort of thing that takes time and it’s the sort of thing that takes a much more holistic approach than just tweaking a couple of prices. If you want people to trust a transport network, and make big decisions about their lives based on that transport network, you need a clear track record of reliability, resilience and availability.
It’s funny.
Last wednesday, I took a train from Milan to Como and back (60 mile round trip) and two return tickets cost me £17. The single ticket from Milan to Como was cheaper (£4.25) than a single ticket to commute ten miles from where I live into Glasgow (£4.80).
*One* single ticket from Glasgow to Edinburgh currently costs £16. A peak ticket from Glasgow to Edinburgh this time last year was £28.90, and it’s looking like that price will increase once peak pricing is brought back.
We don’t half get fucked in this country when it comes to the price of public transport.
The price of train tickets is just insane when you compare it to other countries, I went to Hungary recently and what was a three hour train ride was about £12
The price of train tickets is just insane when you compare it to other countries, I went to Hungary recently and what was a three hour train ride was about £12
If they do get reinstated, at least bring back super-offpeak too. Many of my journeys became more expensive after that “off-peak at any time” move.
I think if say you’re on a tight budget, and you have to use a railcard apparently the summer prices with the lower prices have ended, but if you’re travelling during the morning period before the ticket prices are lower, I think it’s not right that you’re charged say £11/£12 when I could get a return for £7.45, I think a single price should be reformed and should be £3.60 or something like that since it’s one way, because there’s no point in buying a single when it’s charged about 7.00 you might as well buy a return for a few pence more the way they’ve got it worked out. I think if they ran their reduction in rail fares once the strikes have been over this may have improved people taking more usage of the trains due to more availability and the timetable having more services
How do the Scottish Tories and others think the extension of the trial should be paid for? What other services should be cut to provide and increased rail subsidy?
At the moment I’m just over £8 a day off peak for a journey that’s less than 30 mins each way. Not extortionate but not that cheap a way to get around.
When this changes to peak it’ll probably be £13-14 a day. That’s quite the hourly rate for each passenger and I’ll likely stop going to the office as much.
Either I lose out in socialising with my colleagues or I lose out in pocket if I do go to the office, neither option is appealing here. I’m still shocked the government have walked this policy back.
At least offer a fuckin railcard for over 30s
Trains are so laughably expensive I can drive my V8 sports car and fuel will still be cheaper than train. The second we take our diesel and it’s two or more of us it just becomes an absolute no brainer. I couldn’t tell you the number of times we thought about taking the train when we go for day trips only to realise it’d cost several times more than driving, how’s the government expecting people to switch to public transport I’m really not sure.