Focus of work
Austria and Germany have introduced a climate card scheme where passengers pay a simple subscription for nationwide rail travel. A similar scheme is now expected in France.
For this project, Greengauge 21, an independent policy research group, examined whether a similar ticket style system should be introduced in the UK to reduce car mileage, with travellers switching primarily to train travel instead.
An obvious challenge with such a measure is that the large scale increase in public transport use that a Climate-style card could induce is whether the rail system would have the capacity to accommodate the significant increase in travel by train.
The study therefore sought to address two challenges:
1. What would be the right format of a suitable UK Climate-style card?
2. What would the capacity consequences be for rail, and in particular, what can be done between now and 2030/35 to increase capacity on rail so that the network can comfortably absorb an increase in passenger miles and passenger numbers?
Impact
Greengauge 21’s report, Fare Britannia advocates that the model similar to Austria’s subscription-based rail pass, ‘Klimaticket’, should be introduced in Great Britain and how this would work.
For £49 a month, users would have unlimited access to nationwide train travel with the exception of some services – saving up to 40 million car journeys and almost 380,000 tonnes of CO2.
The report was featured across the national and trade media, including The Guardian and Rail Magazine, and prompted discussion in online rail forums.
Looking ahead, the researchers hope that the work will help Ministers consider an alternative to incremental ways of simplifying an over-complicated and off-putting fares system.