Train fares to rise, biggest rise since 2013

I said half in a flippant manner, try not to take it so literally.
With all due respect though I find that hard to believe, the state of the rails where I live is diabolical. the chances of a train arriving on time and leaving on time is akin to winning the lottery every week for life. Not to mention the constant train breakdowns, the failure to electrify the line, constant signal faults etc. etc. etc. To say that the rail franchises, in general, are anything but coasting [at best] is fallacious.

As to the links, thanks. I will give them a read this evening.
I'm not sure paying someone for not doing as badly as they could have is a very good metric to go by...

About as fallacious as you arguing that the whole network and all franchises are bad based on a single line

More stats:

https://www.networkrail.co.uk/who-we-are/how-we-work/performance/public-performance-measure/

85% of trains reach their destination no more than 5 minutes late, or 10 minutes for long distance (basically the main lines) and the worst performer is Govia Thameslink which still manages 79.5%

Cancellation and significant lateness (more than half an hour late) is only 3.7%, the worst offender is again Thameslink at 6.9%

Average lateness for England and Wales is 2.8 minutes, understandably, long distance trains are worst but still only 4.8 minutes late on average

Right Time performance (less than a minute late) nationally is 63.6%. The worst offender is First Hull Trains with only 29% and this stat has the greatest variance

Delay split tells us who is responsible for delays of over 3 minutes, 60% of the time this is state owned Network Rail (Note that this includes things where nobody is to blame such as adverse weather conditions), 29% of the time it is the operator of the train, 11% of the time it is a knock on effect due to other operators.




I don't know all the details of how operators work out their expected performances and how this influences how the franchise is awarded, but that's how it works, and this is how the subsidies/premiums work:


According to full fact this is being changed

https://fullfact.org/news/do-train-operating-companies-earn-massive-profits/

If the science is inherently gamed then why believe in anything?

Fair or not? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-42234488

I hope you realise that many statistics cited by rail companies are in fact gamed so that you don't waste your time and ours for reading this.

No, and the current set-up for railways in this country is insane. We licence private companies to hold the rail franchises, for their own profit, and we pay them direct subsidies.

The East Coast Mainline, which was taken back into government ownership/control in 2009, was the best performing railways until it was reprivatised in 2015. It had the lowest fare rises, the highest rate of capital investment, the lowest subsidy of all the lines and even returned a profit to the treasury.

The fact that this is possible shows just how incompetent and corrupt the private railway franchisees are. Here's a good article on the outrageousness of the East Coast Main Line privatisation;

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/27/privatising-east-coast-rail-rip-off

He clearly did not say anything about all of the 'science' being gamed, merely the statistics cited by the rail companies in this instance. Which lets be fair is a perfectly plausible proposition - it is a well known fact that you can prove or disprove anything at your leisure with statistics.

Is this the East Coast Mainline

"I don't like what the statistics say so I'll accuse somebody who they don't come from of fiddling with them"

Brexit has increased inflation, so is the main cause.

The simplest thing would be that fuel duty had to increase by the same level as rail fares each year.

Airports are incredibly expensive, as is pilot training. What training does a train driver need? Nothing much, a computer could probably do it, if it weren't for the unions.

Train tracks between two stations are capable of transporting vastly more people than a flight path between two airports could safely transport; and the cost in fuel must surely be much lower.

Also you have the additional security measures that have to be taken with air flight, surely that must be pretty expensive too.

Okay answer this simple question would you. Why is it better to send hundreds of millions of pounds to foreign governments for running our railways, rather than into our own treasury?

Are you being facetious? All that can be said for air flight too