People are grumbling- and I can totally understand why- but if fare increases mean people "can't afford to get to work" then they were probably already living on an absolute knife-edge. My season ticket is a huge amount of money but even for me the increase is only £100 across the year. Eight quid a month doesn't really make much difference.
I'm in the unusual position of doing what some people call "reverse commuting". I live in London in zone 1 and commute out to Brighton (or Hove, actually). If my contract were any longer than until May, I think that the cost of it would make it prohibitive. The price hike in itself wasn't huge (less than £10 a month on my season ticket) but the combination of the total price of the ticket, the time it takes to get to work and the lack of a reliable service make this commute unsustainable in the long run.
Currently, I spend about 19% of my post-tax income on commuting. When I worked in Bombay, a Bandra-Churchgate season ticket was Rs. 130 a month - which equated to about 0.2% of my post-tax income. Quite a difference in the end!
People would be prepared to put up with some of the inconvience that rail commuting brings if fares were lower.
Permit me a raised eyebrow. What "inconvenience" does rail commuting bring? I would say that the presence of a railway brings the convenience of being able to live a distance from your work, while the time table usually brings you the convenience of choosing when to travel. The fares are simply the cost of greater convenience - and, compared with buying daily tickets, commuters'season tickets are highly discountedPeople would be prepared to put up with some of the inconvience that rail commuting brings if fares were lower. ......
Permit me a raised eyebrow. What "inconvenience" does rail commuting bring? I would say that the presence of a railway brings the convenience of being able to live a distance from your work, while the time table usually brings you the convenience of choosing when to travel. The fares are simply the cost of greater convenience - and, compared with buying daily tickets, commuters'season tickets are highly discounted
Commuter trains are already crush loaded, if fares were lower what do you think would happen to the loadings?
Of course many of the TOCs also have to lease a lot of rolling stock just to ferry those commuters to and from work, outside these times the trains just sit in the sidings costing the TOCs a lot of money on leasing charges
In my case I was on the dole for a year until finding a job in London. Since my salary increase has been below inflation.
But parking them in the sidings rather than using them saves the TOCs lots of money. The TOCs choose to park them up.
I think the issue is perhaps more relevant to people looking for work and seeing adverts for part-time jobs. If you're going to be paid £20 a day for 3 hours day and the train fare costs over £10 then you'd probably be better off financially by claiming Jobseekers Allowance - or whatever it's called these days.
Have you continued to look for a job nearer home or just accepted the commute?
I think the issue is perhaps more relevant to people looking for work and seeing adverts for part-time jobs. If you're going to be paid £20 a day for 3 hours day and the train fare costs over £10 then you'd probably be better off financially by claiming Jobseekers Allowance - or whatever it's called these days.
Thats true, although do TFL offer free travel?
...where you'll end up getting sanctioned and losing your benefits for turning down work.
"can't afford" is a difficult concept. What I think it's indisputable is that the Railway costs too much, and people who do live reasonable distances from work must spend too high a percentage of their income on commuting.
Typical lack of empathy in this thread from people who don't have to face this problem.
A friend of mine went to a job interview about a year ago (I'll give you three guesses who sent them :roll, where the cost of travelling each day would have been more than the daily wage (even taking season tickets into account). I don't think anyone would be surprised by the outcome of this interview either.
"can't afford" is a difficult concept. What I think it's indisputable is that the Railway costs too much, and people who do live reasonable distances from work must spend too high a percentage of their income on commuting.
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"can't afford" is a difficult concept. What I think it's indisputable is that the Railway costs too much
I was presuming you'd do research and find out the situation before you submitted an application, opposed to being offered the job and then turning it down.
"can't afford" is a difficult concept. What I think it's indisputable is that the Railway costs too much, and people who do live reasonable distances from work must spend too high a percentage of their income on commuting.
Typical lack of empathy in this thread from people who don't have to face this problem.
I assume that was either part time or the journey was something nonsensical like from Manchester to London, otherwise that would be illegal - well below the minimum wage.
I don't know if it's the case here but one thing to note is in a lot of areas if your journey involves multiple bus operators or routes it can cost a lot in comparison to the journey length.