Great Western Coffee Shop

What would free at the point of use travel on trains across Great Britain cost The Government?

First stab at an answer ...

10 Billion pounds per year - £166 for every man, woman and child in the UK to generate an income equivalent to the income in the final pre-Covid year.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/305021/national-rail-revenue-passenger-fares-in-the-united-kingdom/

However there is more to consider

* We need to add other rail systems including light rail - Northern Ireland, Transport for London for sure, Newcastle and Glasgow probably, possibly Manchester, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Edinburgh, Nottingham, Sheffield and Blackpool. There may be others such as cliff lifts.  We really need to consider / add buses (including community buses) and long distance coaches and domestic ferries too.

* We would make a saving if we chose a system that did not require the issuing and checking of some sort of ticketing.

* "Free" public transport would (should!) result in a surge in use, and it's far from clear to me how the transport system would cope with that extra use.

* Much of the extra use would come from passengers replacing private car journeys with public transport ones.  This would be excellent for the more rapid reduction of fossil fuel use, and for clean air and congestion. It would, however, result in a loss of tax income.

* With public transport being free to use, there might be a tendency for people to make longer journeys that previously - more travel and not necessarily good for the environment.  For some, this would be a social and health benefit as we see on buses already where they encourage people to remain active and make journeys as they become older. Walking to your nearest public transport is healthier than jumping in the car too.

* New / rewritten metrics would be needed to measure use and to evaluate the levels of service and investments needed for public transport systems.   Additional services provided to cope with expanded traffic would allow services tuned to both regional and long distance needs, rather than a single service comprising for all.

* Financial outcome models would need replacement.

* There would be a knock-on effect on the domestic airline industry and on the private car markets amongst other (motorway service areas, bypass construction ...) and also on the rail and commercial passenger vehicle construction and mainenance markets

But presumably you would need something to provide data for load management and planning.

I am not sure, most of the car owners I know would probably be more likely to take part in a clinical trial for the "pox" as opposed to getting on a bus or a train.

This is a proven benefit, but

Car users tend to think walking should not be longer than walking from the car across the pavement to the door.

There is going to be a need for some serious thought as to how to replace the revenue from VED with the increase in electric vehicles, let alone the public transport aspect of it.

AND, as you would expect from me, better bike facilities on public transport.

I believe Luxembourg did precisely this a few years ago.

It did indeed. And that's where I took the idea from with my suggestion the UK does the same.

In the early 90s, one of my colleagues at BR Research produced an analysis of the cost of revenue (ticket offices, reconciliation etc) v fares collected and demonstrated that there would be a significant (hundreds of millions) saving.

Of course, at that point, subsidies were significantly higher than they are now so fares made up less of the overall income. In addition, ticket reconciliation was still quite a manual process with large centres across the UK performing this function.