PASSENGERS should brace for a bumper hike in train fares in the New Year, the rail industry has announced.
Ticket prices will increase by 3.1 per cent – the largest rise since January 2013.
Critics condemned the surge as “far too high” at a time when ScotRail has come under sustained criticism for delayed, cancelled and overcrowded services.
Scottish Liberal Democrat transport spokesman Mike Rumbles said the last thing hard-up passengers need is “another year of rail fare rises soaring above wage increases”.
He said: “ScotRail has promised time and time again that fare increase will pay for maintenance and improving rolling stock but for rail users it seems like the service is getting worse and worse.
"Yesterday it was revealed that ScotRail had refunded customers 65,000 times already this year for late trains.
“We will never tempt motorists out of their cars and onto public transport if this is what they have to look forward to.”
The price hike will see the annual cost of getting to work rise by more than £100 for some commuters.
Rail fare increases are predominately capped at July’s RPI inflation figure, but there have been calls for prices to be frozen.
In Scotland, off-peak fare rises are capped at below inflation, and so will go up by only 2.1%.
Scottish Greens transport spokesperson John Finnie said passengers “too often suffer delayed, cancelled and overcrowded trains, so to ask them to pay a significantly increased fare for a poor service is wrong”.
He added: “While the Scottish Government’s transport spending remains focused on new roads, we will continue to see rail commuters treated as an afterthought.”
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “We recognise fares increases are unwelcome, particularly when performance falls short of passengers’ and ministerial expectations.
“The impact on passengers has been minimised by capping increases for regulated ScotRail peak fares at the level of the retail price index (RPI), and regulated off-peak fares 1% lower than inflation.
“This means, in Scotland, average fare increases are lower than England and Wales.”
Fewer than half (45%) of passengers are satisfied with the value for money of train tickets, according to a survey by watchdog Transport Focus.
It came as it emerged Network Rail Scotland – which owns and manages the country's rail infrastructure – is being probed by the transport regulator over its performance.
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