YOU carried a letter (June 4) from the chief executives and managing directors of our leading rail companies asking for suggestions from the public for the “root and branch reform" of rail ticketing regulations in the UK. The letter contained the astonishing fact that there are at present “55 million fares to choose from across the country”. Quite apart from the serious shortcomings of our rail network, it is little wonder then that the rail travelling public feel a sense of bewilderment and frustration when it comes to purchasing a ticket for a rail journey.
Perhaps there is a simple solution to be found in Japan? There a highly successful and efficient national rail network sees the service being operated by a number of private companies known as the Japan Railways Group, or JR. Ticketing is quite straightforward. There is only one fare charged for your trip from A to B. It does not matter where you bought your ticket; from whom you bought your ticket and when you bought your ticket. As far as I am aware, the only discounts available are for season ticket or monthly ticket pass holders. You purchase your ticket direct from JR using very helpful station staff or the very easy to use ticket machines to be found in every railway station. There are no middle-men with their myriad of supposedly discounted offers. You do not have to risk the lottery of booking agencies who are quite clearly doing the job to earn a profit. Quite simply, I would remove such agencies from the business of selling rail tickets and give the job entirely to the rail companies themselves.
The simplicity of the Japanese system plus of course its reliability perhaps explains that in Tokyo, a city of some 30 million people, there are virtually no traffic jams. People take the train rather than a car for travel into and out of the city. At our son’s local station at peak times, a train runs every six minutes into the centre of Tokyo. My wife and I have travelled across Japan by shinkansen some 40 times over a period of 18 years. We have never been a minute later than the published time of arrival. I would encourage Mr Humza Yousaf, our Transport Secretary, to go and have a look at how a really good rail network operates.
Eric Melvin,
6 Cluny Place, Edinburgh.
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