UK - Rail chief warns on high fare prices

[John Ashworth]

Rail chief warns on high fare prices

By Robert Wright, Transport Correspondent
FT.com
Published: April 24 2009 03:00 | Last updated: April 24 2009 03:00

Passengers could be "priced off" the railways by high fares, the chief executive of the rail infrastructure owner has warned, in one of several remarks questioning government policy.

Iain Coucher, of Network Rail, told the Financial Times yesterday that, in the medium-term, it was vital to ask whether ticket-pricing policy was deterring potential passengers.

The Department for Transport currently allows controlled fares, mainly season tickets and off-peak returns, to rise by a percentage point above retail price inflation annually. Unrestricted fares can rise far more.

"If people are genuinely not travelling because of high fares, that's an issue for us," Mr Coucher said. "If we want people to use the most environmentally sustainable form of transport, we should look at the impact of pricing."

While there were good deals with some train operators, it was still possible to find cheaper flights on some routes, Mr Coucher said, pointing to LondonEdinburgh as an example.

He was speaking as Network Rail prepared to announce today the award of key contracts for the cross-London Crossrail project and the £400m remodelling of Reading station to Bechtel of the US.

There have been several public exchanges between Network Rail and ministers in recent weeks, with Lord Adonis, the rail minister, hinting that the company's directors should surrender their bonuses for 2007-08 . The minister also said its performance had been "mixed", pointing particularly to several overhead line faults in January on the London-Glasgow west coast main line.

But Mr Coucher hit back yesterday. Network Rail had successfully met targets over the past five years to halve the delays it caused and cut its basic costs 30 per cent, he said. There were instances, including the west coast main line wire failures, where the company had "let people down", he acknowledged. But he added: "We never promised a perfect railway and the government has never asked us for a perfect railway.

"That doesn't mean to say they shouldn't question us when things go wrong. But we've met every single regulatory target and I'm very proud of what we've done."

Network RailMr Coucher said the government ought to start explicitly favouring rail over other modes of transport because of its environmental advantages. The Department for Transport currently seeks to improve transport's efficiency and environmental-friendliness generally, without favouring one mode over another.

It was vital, if Britain were to become a low-carbon economy, to encourage use of the most carbon-efficient mode for most of passengers' journeys, said Mr Coucher.

"You should be designing a system that facilitates that," he said.

It was necessary to put "a lot more flesh on the bones" of government thinking than was contained in the last big policy document, 2007's Delivering a Sustainable Railway, he added.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009