Rail fare rises '21 - up by 2.6% but not until March

[whole diary]

[broadgage]

I do not seek the end of road transport, but DO hope to see a reduction in road transport.
One good way of achieving this is to raise the excise duty on road fuel, so as to encourage less use and more prudent use.

In only 9 years time, new registrations of petrol and diesel cars will be prohibited, so time to get used to the idea of driving less perhaps.

And as for road freight, a higher fuel price will slightly increase prices, especially of goods transported for long distances, this will encourage more local production.
All taxes have some downsides, but fuel taxes are in my view a good thing, and no worse than increased VAT^▸ (Value Added Tax) which is also inflationary, or increased income taxes which reduce spending power and encourage the export of jobs to lower tax economies.

If we are serious about climate change then we need to drive and fly a lot less.

[TaplowGreen]

I do not seek the end of road transport, but DO hope to see a reduction in road transport.
One good way of achieving this is to raise the excise duty on road fuel, so as to encourage less use and more prudent use.

In only 9 years time, new registrations of petrol and diesel cars will be prohibited, so time to get used to the idea of driving less perhaps.

And as for road freight, a higher fuel price will slightly increase prices, especially of goods transported for long distances, this will encourage more local production.
All taxes have some downsides, but fuel taxes are in my view a good thing, and no worse than increased VAT^▸ (Value Added Tax) which is also inflationary, or increased income taxes which reduce spending power and encourage the export of jobs to lower tax economies.

If we are serious about climate change then we need to drive and fly a lot less.

VAT is applied after fuel duty, so if you increase fuel duty, you also increase the amount of VAT paid on it.

With respect Broadgage, you clearly have an extremely limited level of knowledge and understanding on this subject, so I'll step back from debating it further with you.

[grahame]

Hmmm ... getting very close to getting personal (and I'm not sure if the line is crossed).  Best indeed to move on from a discussion that come at from two places so far apart that they're not meeting in the middle.

[ellendune]

To decarbonise our economy we need to reduce the carbon generated by transport which is a large part.

Taxation is a valid approach to this. Increased taxes of fuel would:

a) Shift the economic balance between methods of distribution.  Our present logistics approach is based on the premise that transport is cheap and capital cost of processing plants and warehousing (in buildings and stored goods) is expensive. (Think of the food miles travelled from farm to packaging station, to warehouse to supermarket).  Increasing transport costs will change this balance.  

b) Shift the economic balance between modes of transport potentially from road to rail which is more fuel efficient and can be decarbonised more easily by electrification.  

In the short term changes will increase costs and even after the structural change they may do to some lesser extent in the longer term, but then climate change impacts will be very expensive.  

Broadgage may not have explained it well, but he is I believe on the right track.

[stuving]

The Public Accounts Committee published a report yesterday on "Achieving Net Zero", while contains a long list of things the government isn't doing to get the country from where it is now to the legally defined endpoint in 2050. All of that is relevant to the discussion here, and the section on "engaging with the general public" especially so. It starts with:

18. Achieving net zero will depend on people changing their habits and lifestyles, adopting new technologies, and in some cases big personal investments. For example, buying zero-emission vehicles, such as electric vehicles, instead of cars that run on petrol or diesel; changing the way they heat their homes by replacing domestic gas boilers with renewable alternatives, such as electric heat pumps; and lifestyle changes such as consuming fewer meat and dairy products. The Climate Change Committee (CCC) estimated in 2019 that 62% of the remaining emissions reductions will happen either through individual choices and behaviours, some of which will require the development of new technologies. But it also found that there was a disconnect between people’s concern about climate change and their understanding of what is required to achieve emissions reductions in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom).

Unless someone (or rather a lot of someones) comes up with some really clever ideas very soon, decarbonisation will involve a significant reduction in our material standard of living. This may well be accompanied by a lot of new employment and economic growth, a combination that will puzzle many (including a lot of economists). So you'd think it was high time for ministers to have started preparing us for this. There are hints that they know this is the PAC report, but that comes from within departments not from politicians.

Politicians don't like making changes that are unpopular, for obvious reasons, and when asked to pre-announce anything of that kind they come over all Augustinian. But even so, it's no too much to ask for another deferral of any rise in fuel duty - even to track inflation - to be accompanied by a justification. And that would also serve to introduce the idea that decarbonisation has costs and, while fuel of course isn't one of them (at current duty rates), other aspects of switching to electric vehicles do.

The NAO report underlying this PAC one came out last December, and another specifically about "reducing carbon emissions from cars" last month. Neither mentioned increasing fuel duty, and nor did the PAC report. But then perhaps the preparation (or warning) of the public belongs more with announcements about house heating, as replacing gas boilers is going to be a more painful process.

[broadgage]

I can not agree that I have "have an extremely limited level of knowledge and understanding on this subject" And indeed consider that I have a good understanding. I have "A" levels with distinction in both physics and chemistry and passed the A level in maths. This gives me a proper cynicism about alleged future advances that will allow us to drive and fly as normal.

Road fuel prices have fallen by about 10% in the last 10 years. In real terms after correcting for the prevailing inflation rate, the fall is in the region of 40%.
This cheap fuel encourages greater consumption.
Allmost all road transport in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom) is oil powered.
Oil derived fuels used for road transport are a significant part of UK total carbon emissions.
The only way to achieve the governments stated aim of net zero carbon is to drive and fly a lot less.
I do not believe that any form of trading or offsetting will help, we need to burn less fuel, and making it more expensive is a start.

Meanwhile rail fares have increased very substantialy in the last ten years, rail travel has become a less attractive option in other ways.

And I DO practice what I preach.
Dont fly or drive.
Minimise other use of fossil fuels.
Recycle as much as possible.

[grahame]

Rail fares by contrast should not in my view increase by more than the inflation rate.
There is a general public perception that rail fares are hugely costly and also very complicated. The actual fare payable is often considered to be a matter of luck rather than being determined by a logical process.

[snip]

I see no merit whatsoever in allowing discounted travel on services known to be overcrowded, simply becuase the ticket was purchased weeks in advance.
I likewise see no merit in charging a punitively high fare for last minute travel on a lightly used service.

I have quoted that at ((here)) - an example of the complexity even on a well-loved and logical journey that does not have advance fare offerings.   One person travelling alone, and without any extra purchase of a railcard, might pay between £17.50 and £331.20.   Depending on the political point people wish to make, they may quote either of those fares in comparisons - or indeed the £12.90 possible with a railcard.

[broadgage]

Petrol by contrast is about the same price no matter when purchased and used.
Rail fares are far too complex, and a side effect of this is that actual journey times are now much extended.

As an example, consider Minehead to London.
This requires a bus from Minehead to Taunton, and then a train to London.
The only affordable fares are restricted to a particular train.
This requires leaving Minehead at least an hour earlier than suggested by the actual journey time, to allow for bus delays and cancellations. Missing the train means paying a "fine" of about £100, rather than simply waiting for the next train.
So the actual journey time has been extended by an hour or more, which makes driving a lot more attractive.

Under my proposed simplified fares, an off peak ticket would be valid on ANY off peak train, no more tickets tied to one specified train.

[Robin Summerhill]

I think the relevant qualifications when dealing with fuel tax rises are likely to be in politics and PR^▸ (Public Relations) rather than anything else.

Fuel tax increases, as well as the issues raised by TG such as economic impact on completely unrelated issues such as food prices, are also extremely unpopular.

Let us not forget there are people around who, if they stumbled across this forum by chance, may discover some amusement in reading threads such as 4tph to Severn Beach, or trams for Bath and Bristol, or contactless payments in the Thames Valley, when they personally haven’t had a community train service since 1965 or a bus service since 1982 (Stanley Bridge is an example).

They may laugh out loud at people complaining about losing late evening bus and train services when they know it is virtually impossible to get from Tetbury to Calne by public transport at any time, let alone after the pubs had shut. Other examples of similar relatively short journeys can be found all over the country

Those examples are digressions, but they emphasise the point. There are people, indeed vast numbers of people, who do not have the benefit of sensible access to public transport at all and are totally reliant on their cars, and that situation isn’t going to change any time soon.

Some of those people will have lost their jobs through COVD, and others will lose them through Brexit in the future. How do you think, on a political and PR level, a fuel tax increase is going to affect these people and, more importantly for politicians, their voting intentions at the next election?

If the economy was booming then fuel tax increases will be grumbled about but accepted by the population. To do it at the moment would lead to riots in the streets in some countries and, at the very least lead to a few lost deposits come the next election in the UK^▸ (United Kingdom). Conversely, telling people that their personal tax allowances will be frozen in a couple of years time and you’ll hardly hear a “harrumph.”

When ideology and political expediency collide then poetical expediency usually wins.