Blog – Future of rail
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03 October 2019
Responding to the latest passenger rail usage figures released today, 3 October, by the Office of Rail and Road, Darren Shirley, Chief Executive of Campaign for Better Transport, said:
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14 August 2019
So, as it stands, in January rail fares will go up by 2.8 per cent - last month’s Retail Price Index (RPI) figure announced today. Commuters will be dismayed to be paying yet more again next year, not least as they endure weekly delays and cancellations and regular overcrowding on much of the...
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17 June 2019
The announcement that the Government intends to legislate for net zero emissions by 2050 has far reaching consequences for the transport sector. As the largest source of greenhouse gases, emissions from the sector rose between 2013 and 2017 and are higher now than they were in 1990. Meeting a...
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08 April 2019
Between 1998 and 2009, the West Coast Mainline (WCML) saw massive changes. Whilst the programme was beset with problems, our latest report, 'Transformation of the West Coast Mainline: How rail investment is benefitting people, the environment and the economy', shows the improvements have...
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05 February 2019
Fifty years after the Beeching Report led to the closure of 5,000 miles of rail track, rail travel is more popular than at any point since Victorian times. Yet, despite hundreds of reopenings being proposed, few reach construction, due in part to the lack of national oversight with identifying...
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07 January 2019
The annual rail fare rise has become an unwelcome start to each new year as millions of us return to work after the Christmas break. But this year's average fare rise of 3.1 per cent (3.2 per cent for season tickets) will have left many passengers wondering what on earth they are paying for...
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27 November 2018
A new independent rail ombudsman has been launched to intervene when passengers feel let down by train companies. We welcomed its introduction because we know that far too often passengers don’t feel their complaints against rail companies are resolved satisfactorily, but until now there was no...
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21 November 2018
The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) is urging Chris Grayling, the Secretary of State for Transport, to do more to cut transport sector carbon emissions to avoid undermining legally binding targets in the Climate Change Act. Transport is the only sector whose emissions grew between 2012 and...
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26 September 2018
The interests of passengers and communities should be central to the Department for Transport’s major review of the railways. Train users and communities deserve a radical plan which delivers more reliable services, better ticketing and accountability when things go wrong.
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15 August 2018
Today we learned that regulated rail fares will go up by a massive hike of 3.2% in January 2019. Government regulated rail fares, that's things like season tickets and standard returns, make up almost half of all fares. They are the tickets many of us have to buy in order to get to work.