‘Expensive fares deter business travel’

AS Virgin West Coast has revealed a like-for-like fall in revenue in the past year, a survey by the consumer watchdog Passenger Focus shows that many companies perceive the railway as being too expensive, unreliable and inconvenient for business travel.

The decline in West Coast revenue was disclosed in an interim management statement by Stagecoach Group, which owns 49 per cent of Virgin Rail Group. It said like-for-like revenues at Virgin Rail Group, which runs services between London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow, fell by 0.6 per cent in the 44 weeks to 1 March.



It was not made clear the extent to which this revenue loss was caused by the additional line closures at weekends and bank holidays last year for Network Rail to complete the £9 billion route modernisation by last December.

But Virgin stated: “Passengers had a truly awful year. We had huge disruption and there were 120 days when there was disruption on the line due to the Network Rail upgrade.”

Now the route modernisation has been completed, Virgin said it hoped for growth of up to 10 per cent in the next year. It is now operating 50 per cent more trains between London and Birmingham and London and Manchester, with a 20-minute frequency.

Meanwhile, research by Passenger Focus has revealed the potential for the rail industry to attract greater numbers of business travellers onto trains and improve use of off-peak services.

Because the Department for Transport’s own research shows business travel often takes place at off peak times, Passenger Focus says it believes there is opportunity for the industry to encourage greater use of the network among the business community.

Passenger Focus’s research showed two thirds (64 per cent) of businesses say they use the train.

However, the research also revealed employers perceive the railway as being “too expensive, unreliable and inconvenient to make it the obvious choice for business travel.”

Passenger Focus explained: “Business passengers will avoid catching the train if they need to carry goods/samples (23 per cent), the station is too far away (23 per cent), have their cars available (22 per cent), and their destination is not on the rail network (21 per cent). 



“A third of employers said they are not happy with the price of the train ticket – 35 per cent said it was too expensive. A quarter of businesses would like to see fares reduced between 31 and 50 per cent.”

Anthony Smith, Passenger Focus chairman said: “Passengers increasingly tell us they’re more satisfied with their train journey. This report shows there is plenty of opportunity to get more business on the trains. If employees can work on the train and buy an affordable, flexible ticket, they are more likely to travel by rail.

“However, the study shows that the rail industry must keep up its focus on performance and look at value for money and ticketing issues to ensure that the train can be a viable choice for more employers.”

• The role of Passenger Focus — the independent consumer watchdog representing Great Britain’s rail passengers and soon to represent bus, coach and possibly tram passengers in England — could have its role extended further to airline passengers under a consultation that has been launched by the Department for Transport.