mjr wrote:reohn2 wrote:It should reliable across the country and the same price per mile where ever with an off peak rate and reduced rate for the retired and infirm.
Currently commuters into the capital and other major cities are being held to ransom and [...]
Currently pricing is one tool used to try to limit overcrowding. If it was a same price per mile but varying by peak/off-peak, how would you limit London commuter overcrowding without penalising commuters travelling the same distance into cities with quieter trains? How do countries with per-mile pricing do that?
The service doesn't serve the people who use it,one alternative is to build elsewhere whilst we have the chance,another is to build more railways where they're needed.
IMO,and I'm no expert,but the UK seems hell bent keep trying to fit a quart into a pint pot with regards to London,I seems the same thing now happening in Manchester,and all under a banner of austerity.
One thing from abroad that I would like to see is more and more reasonably-priced day tickets for semi-fast services in an area - I think these are called "rangers" in the UK, but there aren't many. In Germany, the Land Tickets cover the whole country, state-by-state, plus there's an off-peak all-Germany day ranger (Quer-durchs-Land-Ticket) and a weekend one (the Happy Weekend) which effectively impose a fare cap for semi-fast services of about €70 for up to 5 people. Their Regional Expresses aren't intercity-spec but are often like the best UK local trains - as well as the locomotive-hauled ones, some are currently operated by Coradias (a sibling of the trains on the Manchester-Wales services) and some by Flirts (coming soon to the Norwich/Ipswich/Stansted lines).
I can't comment on trains in Europe only to say the ones I've travelled on in Italy,Spain and Portugal seemed a much cheaper and more peasent experience than the UK.That said I'm an infrequent all user these days and my comments are based on the media and what family members tell me