RAIL travel in Scotland requires twice the level of government subsidy than the UK as a whole due to the low number of passengers on most trains, Britain's rail regulator has found.
The cost to taxpayers of transporting a passenger one kilometre (0.62 miles) in Scotland is 15.5p, compared to a UK average of 7.5p, pushing the total bill for running the rail network up to £725 million a year.
The Office of Rail Regulation (ORR), which published the industry figures yesterday, blamed the higher costs on low loading levels, with trains carrying an average of 84 people in Scotland – the lowest in the UK – compared to 143 on an average train in the rail region of Wessex.
The analysis comes as the Scottish Government prepares to finalise plans to lower the cost of operating the railways from 2014, when the ScotRail passenger franchise, currently operated by First, is due to be renewed.
A consultation published last November provoked a storm of opposition as it suggested hiking up fares and slowing down some services.
According to the analysis by the ORR, the total cost of running Scotland's railways is £1.2 billion a year, with fares from passengers contributing £416m towards that and government subsidies totalling £613m.
A spokesman for Transport Scotland welcomed the report saying it showed that the rail industry was working together to achieve greater value for money for passengers and taxpayers.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article