The great rail fares mystery

The price per mile of a weekly travelcard to London is generally higher for shorter journeys.

But there are also massive differences between places that are similar distances from London .

And if you look at other types of ticket the variation gets even greater and harder to explain.

Many fares are just not even available in different places - for example there are 203 stations where Anytime Day Return fares are available.

In 2022/23 the taxpayer spent 11.9 billion subsidising the running of the railway - the equivalent of roughly 2p on the basic rate of income tax.

Regulated standard fares are two and a half times the price they were in 1995 (slightly below RPI ), while unregulated standard tickets are three times price, and first class tickets are four times.

Government and industry were gearing up for another big push in 2019 , but the process was sideswiped by the pandemic.

I think there is a case to go way further on flexible tickets - the current part time season ticket’ covers far too few journeys and the join up with other modes of travel in the cities still has a long way to go.