Busier railway is costing more

摘要

In its first interim submission to government, Sir Roy McNulty's value for money study highlights the central conundrum of the privatised railway. An industry with relatively high fixed costs has required an increase in taxpayer funding of ￡2-9bn between 1993- 94 and 2008-09, despite a real increase in passenger revenue of ￡2bn over the same period. As a result, taxpayer funding has grown from around 40% of railway income in the early 1990s to 50% today. RBI notes that at the peak of the last economic cycle in 1989-90, the taxpayer's contribution to the cost of the publicly-owned passenger railway was around 25%.