Flexible rail travel is becoming the preserve of the rich and everyone else must book well in advance to get an affordable ticket, the official passenger watchdog said yesterday in response to fare increases of double the rate of inflation.

From January 2 a passenger buying a standard class open return ticket between London and Manchester will pay £230, up from £219.

This is the only ticket available on the day of travel during a three-hour period in the morning and another three hours in the afternoon. In the past four years Virgin Trains has raised the London to Manchester fare by more than 30 per cent.

Season tickets and saver fares, which are set by the Government, will rise by an average 4.8 per cent in January. Open and cheap-day tickets, which are set by the train companies, will rise by 5.4 per cent.

But these averages concealed much higher increases on many routes, with commuters between Canterbury and London paying an extra £348, 11 per cent up, for an annual season ticket.

First Great Western is raising unregulated fares in London and the Thames Valley by 9.8 per cent.

Some of the highest increases were announced by companies that have just taken over franchises on new terms under which the Government will pay them much less subsidy than their predecessors.

Crosscountry and East Midlands Trains are raising unregulated fares by 7 per cent.

Anthony Smith, the chief executive of Passenger Focus, said that the increases were largely the result of government policy, which was to make passengers pay more of the total cost of running the railways.

This year the £10 billion cost is evenly split between taxpayers and farepayers. In July the Government said that it wanted passengers to be paying 75 per cent of the total cost by 2014.

From 2009 the annual subsidy for the railways will fall from £4.5 billion to £3 billion. The total collected in fares will rise from £5 billion a year to £6.7 billion by 2010 and £9 billion by 2014.

Mr Smith said: “This is the shape of things to come. We are looking at this level of fare rises every year at least until 2014.

“The huge demand for rail travel and the lack of capacity will result in train companies pricing people off busier trains.

“The clear push here is to force people to book ahead if they want an affordable ticket. Flexibility is becoming the preserve of the well-off or those whose employers are paying for their tickets.”

Brian Cooke, chairman of London TravelWatch, said it was wrong to make passengers pay in advance for investments that would take years to deliver.

“We don’t believe the passengers should pay for improvements in advance – it should be funded and recouped later – especially as the growth in rail passengers in and around London has meant the train companies are receiving more revenue than anticipated.”

Train companies claim that they are making it easier to buy cheaper tickets in advance. Virgin’s cheapest advance-purchase return from London to Manchester is increasing by only £1 to £26 in January.

But these fares are often all snapped up weeks in advance. Passengers are heavily penalised if they do not stick to specified trains, meaning they have no flexibility if they are running late or their plans change.

A Department for Transport study last year found that people on higher incomes were twice as likely to use trains.

Only 40 per cent of those earning less than £13,500 made a train journey last year, compared with 77 per cent earning more than £31,200.

George Muir, director of the Association of Train Operating Companies, said: “We need the revenue from fares to pay for investment in the railway for the benefit of passengers.

“We are providing a higher-perform-ing railway with new, refurbished and punctual trains and better stations.”

A Transport Department spokesman said: “Regulated fares are no higher now in real terms than they were at privatisation, even after these rises.”

Gerry Doherty, leader of the Transport Salaried Staffs Association, said: “Rail companies are holding passengers to ransom every year and the Government is allowing them to get away with it.

“This amounts to daylight robbery because many commuters have no alternative when it comes to getting to work. Both the Treasury and rail companies are benefiting at the passengers’ expense.”

Natalie Evans, head of policy at the British Chambers of Commerce, said: “This decision will not help the current capacity problems on our roads and, sadly, it will only serve to damage the future competitiveness of British business. We urge the rail companies to reconsider the price increases.”

Tony Bosworth, Friends of the Earth’s transport campaigner, said: “The rise in rail fares is the latest sign of the Government’s disastrous transport policy.

“We should be trying to get people out of their cars and on to public trans-port,not pricing them off trains. The response to growing rail passenger numbers is to raise prices, whereas the Government’s response to growing air passenger numbers is to support big increases in airport capacity.

“Since Labour came to power the cost of motoring has fallen by 10 per cent in real terms, while bus and train travel have become more expensive. It’s little wonder that UK carbon dioxide emissions have risen.” Michael Binyon, page 21

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