Rail union RMT general secretary Mick Lynch has exposed another negative side to the privatisation of the railway system with a survey on the practices of ticketing corporation Trainline.
He said:
Trainline is a profiteering machine that’s ripping off passengers and unnecessarily costing taxpayers. Their model relies on hidden fees, deceptive ticket options and overpriced fares, all designed to boost shareholder profits at the public’s expense.
Trainline: corporate middle men adding cost
RMT surveyed 2,600 rail workers about Trainline’s model. It found that 90% of the workers believe Trainline offers the most expensive fares, hiding cheaper options. 80% of rail workers surveyed had met passengers who bought invalid tickets through Trainline, only to have to pay again.
RMT also found that Trainline doesn’t offer real time updates, instead providing outdated or inaccurate information.
Trainline accounted for £3bn in ticket sales in the six months to August 31 with a 17% revenue increase to £229m.
Lynch said that the Labour Party proposed partial nationalisation of the railways should end middle-man ticket profiteering from companies:
A nationalised, publicly-owned rail ticketing system would mean transparency, fair prices, and best-value fares for every passenger.
RMT supports plans to simplify ticketing and the creation of Great British Railways should be an opportunity to tackle the rip-off and the confusion that Trainline has thrived off.
It is a first step to ensuring rail ticketing returns to public ownership, putting passengers and staff first.
Labour plans to bring the railway operating companies into public ownership under a new Great British Railways.
But the government will not nationalise the rolling stock companies – Eversholt, Porterbrook, and Angel Trains. These companies own the majority of the trains that we rent, instead of owning them ourselves.
Company shareholders made over £2bn in the past decade in dividends.
Of course, nor will it nationalise Trainline and other private ticket companies.
Public ownership is a no-brainer for railways
All this is an utter scam.
Railways and of course the trains themselves are a natural monopoly. That’s because a business cannot build another train station in a town or city to compete with the existing station. That would make no practical sense, take up too much space unnecessarily and be very expensive.
If a passenger needs to travel, they need to get a train at a certain time and they have no real choice but to get that train at the nearest station. So there is no market competition between railway operators whatsoever. It now seems even ‘market competition’ in tickets from companies like Trainline is a scam, too.
RMT is right to highlight that nationalisation provides an opportunity to bring ticketing in-house, ensuring that corporate middle men like Trainline aren’t inflating costs for passengers as a whole.
Featured image via BBC Newsnight
