Train robbery

Steven. "not online much for a while"
Posts: 1516 Joined: 27-06-06 Location: London
Submitted by Steven. on 3 July, 2007 - 13:35.

Just a nit-picking thing, the train far article begins:

Quote:
Rob Ray looks into the strange case of train travel price hikes which have no apparent economic basis for Freedom newspaper

http://libcom.org/news/all-s-fare-train-robbery-19062007

Surely the "economic basis" of the price hikes is clearly to increase profits, no? Or am i missing something?

Joseph K. "the thinking man's idiot"
Posts: 7666 Joined: 14-03-06 Location: Brighton
3 July, 2007 - 14:34

i presume it means there hasn't been a hike in fuel prices or something to 'justify' it

catch "unpractical[sic] and blinkered"
Posts: 9872 Joined: 07-02-06 Location: London
3 July, 2007 - 21:32

And no major rail improvement programmes to be funded.

Presumably higher fares lowers passenger numbers, so doesn't have a strict correlation with revenue either.

The Times had some mini-headline about hikes because the franchises were costing so much to buy. I assumed that they wanted the franchise costs reduced (which wouldn't mean are fare-drop of course), but didn't read the full article so there might be some gouging going on as well.