Switzerland 🇨🇭 (STATE OWNED) is Europe’s most reliable rail system, with 92–94 % punctuality and a dense, integrated network. Fares are around €0.22/km (≈ £0.19/km) and roughly half the costs are covered by subsidies (≈ CHF 5–6 bn/year). Spain 🇪🇸 operates Europe’s largest high‑speed network (about 4 000 km) and offers 300–310 km/h trains run by RENFE (STATE) and other operators; competition keeps fares down to about €0.10–0.12/km (≈ £0.09–0.10/km) with a moderate €1.4–1.6 bn annual subsidy (≈ 25–30 %). By contrast, the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 (PRIVATE) has some high‑speed routes but remains Europe’s most expensive rail network at about €0.35–0.40/km (≈ £0.30–0.35/km) despite £11.9 bn in public subsidy; infrastructure is public but train services are run by PRIVATE FRANCHISES, and punctuality lags behind continental peers at 75–80 %.
There is a bit of comparing apples and pears here - you would expect to pay more for a high speed operator offering a more comfortable ride than a suburban trundle, surely?
I'm not sure that there will be many weekly seasons being sold for journeys over 90 minutes one way.
I don't know what happened to my earlier comment. Anyway, I can see a heroic amount of labour has gone into collecting these figures. I'm not sure, though, why you used a 7-day season ticket + London travelcard as the comparator - this would be all very well for comparing commuting costs, but I doubt if many passengers from Swansea or Plymouth will travel on one. My own experience as one who regularly travels between SE England and South Wales is that the fares on trains from Paddington are significantly better value than those from Euston or Kings Cross, which I also occasionally use.
I note that www.brfares.com no longer displays walk-up return fares from Edinburgh or Newcastle. This is presumably a result of LNER's insane experiment with "semi-flexible" fares which offer much worse terms and conditions than the offpeak tickets they are intended to replace.
The expansion of contactless ticketing outside London has a real customer benefit of making the price of a single half that of a return; and of blending peak and off-peak ticketing. This makes my travel from Twyford both more convenient and cheaper than it otherwise could be.
Ticket gates in London can read magstripe tickets, Oyster, ITSO and contactless - but not barcode ticketing, which as you say is rapidly becoming the standard for national rail.
The differential in fares is in many cases a result of the former Network SouthEast vs Intercity categories on BR. As separate divisions fares were set separately, with a sometimes significant differential to reflect the then much higher quality of 'Intercity' services vs commuter NSE ones.
Kings Lynn in particular was the farthest-flung reach of the old Network SouthEast area. Conversely, on the Midland Main Line, the boundary is very close to London at Bedford.
Compare the colour of the dots with what is now called the Network Railcard area - it matches the discontinuities almost perfectly.
The unevenness in South Essex between what are now GA and c2c has also been the case for about a century now. Basically, the Great Eastern has always been the faster, more prestigious line, whilst the LT&S was a working class suburban railway, so fares developed in line with this.
Thanks for writing this - the pricing of railway tickets is completely impenetrable (not just for heading into London, but also for going on regional routes).
Not my area at all, but one explanation I have heard for some of this is that in a more market-based system, longish-distance intercity trains would often outbid regional commuter services into London for the use of particular routes. There was a bit of this in the 1990s, but it was so unpopular that it didn't get all that far - variation in fares partly reflects this process of aborted change and negotiation.
Switzerland 🇨🇭 (STATE OWNED) is Europe’s most reliable rail system, with 92–94 % punctuality and a dense, integrated network. Fares are around €0.22/km (≈ £0.19/km) and roughly half the costs are covered by subsidies (≈ CHF 5–6 bn/year). Spain 🇪🇸 operates Europe’s largest high‑speed network (about 4 000 km) and offers 300–310 km/h trains run by RENFE (STATE) and other operators; competition keeps fares down to about €0.10–0.12/km (≈ £0.09–0.10/km) with a moderate €1.4–1.6 bn annual subsidy (≈ 25–30 %). By contrast, the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 (PRIVATE) has some high‑speed routes but remains Europe’s most expensive rail network at about €0.35–0.40/km (≈ £0.30–0.35/km) despite £11.9 bn in public subsidy; infrastructure is public but train services are run by PRIVATE FRANCHISES, and punctuality lags behind continental peers at 75–80 %.
There is a bit of comparing apples and pears here - you would expect to pay more for a high speed operator offering a more comfortable ride than a suburban trundle, surely?
I'm not sure that there will be many weekly seasons being sold for journeys over 90 minutes one way.
I don't know what happened to my earlier comment. Anyway, I can see a heroic amount of labour has gone into collecting these figures. I'm not sure, though, why you used a 7-day season ticket + London travelcard as the comparator - this would be all very well for comparing commuting costs, but I doubt if many passengers from Swansea or Plymouth will travel on one. My own experience as one who regularly travels between SE England and South Wales is that the fares on trains from Paddington are significantly better value than those from Euston or Kings Cross, which I also occasionally use.
I note that www.brfares.com no longer displays walk-up return fares from Edinburgh or Newcastle. This is presumably a result of LNER's insane experiment with "semi-flexible" fares which offer much worse terms and conditions than the offpeak tickets they are intended to replace.
Thanks for this interesting article.
The expansion of contactless ticketing outside London has a real customer benefit of making the price of a single half that of a return; and of blending peak and off-peak ticketing. This makes my travel from Twyford both more convenient and cheaper than it otherwise could be.
Ticket gates in London can read magstripe tickets, Oyster, ITSO and contactless - but not barcode ticketing, which as you say is rapidly becoming the standard for national rail.
The differential in fares is in many cases a result of the former Network SouthEast vs Intercity categories on BR. As separate divisions fares were set separately, with a sometimes significant differential to reflect the then much higher quality of 'Intercity' services vs commuter NSE ones.
Kings Lynn in particular was the farthest-flung reach of the old Network SouthEast area. Conversely, on the Midland Main Line, the boundary is very close to London at Bedford.
Compare the colour of the dots with what is now called the Network Railcard area - it matches the discontinuities almost perfectly.
The unevenness in South Essex between what are now GA and c2c has also been the case for about a century now. Basically, the Great Eastern has always been the faster, more prestigious line, whilst the LT&S was a working class suburban railway, so fares developed in line with this.
Thanks for writing this - the pricing of railway tickets is completely impenetrable (not just for heading into London, but also for going on regional routes).
Not my area at all, but one explanation I have heard for some of this is that in a more market-based system, longish-distance intercity trains would often outbid regional commuter services into London for the use of particular routes. There was a bit of this in the 1990s, but it was so unpopular that it didn't get all that far - variation in fares partly reflects this process of aborted change and negotiation.