22 May 2009
By Alex Klaushofer
The Public Accounts Committee has slated the government for allowing rail companies to sell cheap fares only on the internet.
A PAC report said the policy undermined the railways ‘as a public service available to all’.
The report, published on May 19, examined the performance of the Department for Transport since it took responsibility for rail franchises.
The committee said that, while the department had protected taxpayers’ interests, it had failed to take into account the negative effects of the policy on passengers.
‘It is unacceptable that low-cost fares, which should be available to all rail passengers, are most readily found by those with access to the internet,’ said PAC chair Edward Leigh.
‘This approach undermines the whole basis of the railways as a public service available to all. It excludes those people without access to the internet, without the time to search or who decide to travel at short notice.
‘There is no reason why the department should favour a system which supports such perverse and unwarranted exclusion,’ he added.
The MPs also criticised the department for failing to consider how overcrowding, complex fare arrangements and high car parking charges affected passengers.
Research by the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association, published on May 18, found that rail companies charged passengers more than £1bn a year for using station car parks.
The union survey of 1,000 stations in England and Scotland found that it costs as much as £135 to park at Birmingham or Manchester for eight hours.
TSSA general secretary Gerry Doherty said: ‘Passengers are being ripped off simply because they are a captive audience. They are already paying the most expensive fares in Europe and now we find they are paying the highest car parking charges as well.’
The DfT took over responsibility for letting rail franchises from the Strategic Rail Authority in 2005.
