The Herald is headlining:
ScotRail customers face huge price hike as peak fare scheme comes to an end
after an experimental, pilot, scheme, cancelled on 20 August 2024, came to an end today.
The experiment was unsuccessful:
A government trial which scrapped peak-time rail prices ends on Friday after almost a year. The Scottish government previously concluded the costs did not justify continuing the trial as it had not achieved its aim of persuading people to swap car journeys for rail travel. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9vpgzv4x34o
Neither the Herald nor BBC Scotland want you to know this:
Fares and fares increases remain, on average, lower than across the rest of Great Britain. ScotRail also continue to develop fares initiatives which can help attract more passengers, while offering savings and added value to existing rail users. https://www.transport.gov.scot/news/rail-fares-increase-level-confirmed-2/
The above heatmap does need updating but it is most unlikely that the state-owned ScotRail will have been allowed above inflation increases comparable to the shareholder-feeding English services.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
Westminster are responsible for the state of the railways. Private companies making vast profits giving money to shareholders. The track is owned by others. A complicated system. Westminster spending £Billions wasted on HS2. A total waste of monies. Bring a two tier rail system. It will be more expensive. People will chose to take cheaper trains unless in desperation. No business case. Not enough passengers. ConDem muck up.
To improve the railways and shorten journey times in Britain, investment should be made in the North and Scotland. Journey times take twice as long because of historical lack of investment. Shorter journey times would mean less flights. Less subsidised Heathrow airport hubs. Scotland has to pay for London transport. Thatcher took transport centralised through London. Total congestion. Hours of delay and hold ups. Anywhere but Heathrow.
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Appreciate there would have been additional financial costs in continuing the pilot which again would have opened them up to criticism. That said as someone who used to commute to Edinburgh every day so personally not sure if 6 months was long enough to make me or anyone else to seriously consider altering their travel arrangements. To my mind short term schemes/ Special Offers like this often fail to attract new customers who in this instance would face the upheaval of changing their travel plans (car sharing etc). IF the pilot had been longer term I might have been tempted but I hope that if circumstances allow in the future they might consider introducing another similar scheme as we all need to change our attitudes if we are to combat climate change problems.
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Maybe if the drivers had not taken industrial action half-way through the pilot scheme that led to a truncated timetable then perhaps the results would have been better.
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No industrial action has been taken by rail staff.
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The Scottish Government has to balance its budget. It was subsidising the removal of the ‘peak’ fares and, although there had been some shift of passengers to rail, the revenue was insufficient to re-pay the subsidy. Given the financial constraints being imposed by the Treasury, the Scottish Finance Secretary , in order to balance the books (which Westminster does not have to do each year) this was one of the cuts she chose to make.
To change the subject slightly – now that the UK Government has decided to renationalise the railways what will Scotrail’s situation be? It is a already publicly owned rail service. Will it remain as owned by the Scottish Government or will it be corralled into GREAT BRITISH RAILWAYS? Will it continue to have Scotrail livery or will it have to be union-jacked in GBR livery?
Alasdair Macdonald.
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“The Scottish Government has to balance its budget”
Not according to the new Labour UK government.
On the UK Gov website compiled on the 14 August by the new MP, and now also part of the staff in the Scotland Office as in the parliamentary under Secretary of State for Scotland , Kirsty McNeill.
Headed as “GERS stats show higher public spending for Scotland as part of UK”
So they , Labour, are issuing statements such as these via this report :
“The collective economic strength of the UK means higher spending on public services in Scotland”.
“The @scotgov GERS figures show people in Scotland benefit from £2417 per head of additional spending compared to the UK average”.
“The figures also reveal that the “notional deficit” in Scotland grew to around £22 billion, or 10.4% of GDP, more than double the UK deficit of 4.5% of GDP”.
So as was correctly said by a previous commentator on here Scotland has to balance its budget every year as it cannot have a deficit. As essentially it’s government cannot borrow.
However these bogus claims by UK parties, like Labour, are regularly trotted out every year to confuse and deceive gullible voters in Scotland into believing that the Scottish government are a spendthrift debt ridden government, and too that Scotland is treated, as a nation within the UK , far better than other nation’s citizens (sponging off them even).
(While our, Scotland’s, contribution to the UK’s Treasury is conveniently ignored or omitted as being significant and essential).
Here’s what they, Labour and others like them, never promote on GERS and Scotland.
GERS Data is produced for Scotland as part of the UK. It does not model scenarios for an independent Scotland in which the Scottish government would be enabled to make it’s own fiscal choices.
Labour, and others like them, also assume most people do not fully understand this. They actually want voters in Scotland to believe that we have debt in Scotland and that debt has been incurred via us alone with nothing of that debt includes the UK being factored in.
Gers figures are not meant to be anything other than a way of showing the current position under the present arrangements that is with Scotland as a part of the UK.
GERS calculations for Scotland also include UK government spending in non-devolved areas in Scotland such as defence, and allocates a proportion of the UK’s debt interest payments to Scotland.
In 2016 a pro Indy blog noted 6 Key facts about GERS:
Also via Richard Murphy in 2019 where he stated “What GERS is asking us to believe is that with 8.2% of the UK population Scotland created between 54% and 60% of the UK deficit last year, depending on the basis used”
This was based on the figures presented on the UK deficit in the previous year that tried to imply that Scotland created between 54% and 60% of that UK debt”
He also added “Scotland would not have chosen to spend some of the cost charged to it by the UK government” as a way for him, Mr Murphy, to further substantiate his valid point on GERS and Scotland.
So what say Kirsty McNeil and Labour ?
Balderdash or just refuse to acknowledge or listen perhaps ? (as is normal for all UK parties whose main focus and interest lies elsewhere within the UK- England).
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‘… does not model scenarios for an independent Scotland in which the Scottish government would be enabled to make it’s own fiscal choices.’
When Unionists wedded to GERS data then make their demands for certainty from independence supporters over a detailed plan for the economy of an independent Scotland, the temptation is to pander to them. This form of Unionist argument fails to acknowledge for example the heated debate ranging just weeks after a UK General Election over what the best ‘plan’ for the UK economy, even in the short to medium term, should be. And of course after the next GE the economic ‘plan’ for the UK might be changed and/or international events mights intervene to necessitate a change.
The real, the substantive issue is whether Scotland has the economic (including intrinsic, ‘sticky’) assets of value and the societal/civic assets and capabilities to enable an independent Scotland to be at least as successful and resilient as other comparable independent nation-states, including those delivering better outcomes for their citizens than the UK does. And of course based on all the evidence, domestic and gained through international comparison, it does!
Democratically elected governments in an independent Scottish nation-state will have a wealth of economic and societal/civic assets with which to better the lives of all our country’s citizens and to make a wider, positive international contribution.
Those that choose to live – to stay or to come – here will be able to vote in governments that always represent a majority of them and which will have the agency necessary, the focus and the incentives to address their needs and wants. These governments will then be judged by the same ‘them’ on how well the responsibilities of government have been performed. So crucial, so normal
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The trains go north to south and back in Britain. Would the Scottish Gov only have control of the nationalised railway in Scotland? The train contracts in the South are awarded by regions. Different entities own the track. More complicated.
The railways have special deals. 1/3 off, pensioners pass for £20, for regular passengers. Young travel 1/3 off. There were special over 55 deals. It is more expensive when some people have bus passes. Bus passes cannot be used on the trams. Increases the bus service to the airport. The Trams are subsidised. Edinburgh, the wealthiest city has subsidised transport.
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O/T
Defence chiefs acquire chips factory after closure fears
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/defence-chiefs-acquire-chips-factory-093000651.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAANsmoJhlure5U7o7w7DtPtfgd2nCP4e9omnxDo8DmY0y2nES4yTJSAcVLmmsoKqR7QG3pJfO72cpOKd1ZK44vWiqKNjzaqJllj5cKjSbbqZtjoFuVoXuU8YdeuElhJc61Pd51ghDtPjJltEZODztZIRBewc4gEXu_P5Aa-I1v2Wt
But not Grangemouth
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The main reason reprtedly cited by commuting car for their car use is that public transport is too expensive.
So a healthy mind would enquire as to why car use didn’t drop when peak fairs were scrapped?
The Devil is ever in the detail.
Yes, Scotrail dropped peak fare rates, but did they also drop season ticket prices to match (I genuinely don’t know) as I would hazard a guess that many peak time travellers use a season ticket of some for to manage costs. For that matter did SPT drop the price of a Zonecard? [Spoiler- they rejigged the Zones and nearly doubled the average cost for a comparable zonecard!]
Assuming the answer to the question above is that every peak time rail passenger benefitted from the off peak, was this new price cheaper than using a car? I doubt it was.
Even if it was cheaper, I suspect a substantial number of commuters would still be wed to their cars for the convenience and privacy (you know, the ones who hate “peasant class transport”).
Public Transport needs to be CHEAP not just cheap-er.
Take a look at what’s happening to rail travel in Germany.
The Deutschlandticket costs €49 euros per month and allows unlimited public transport (bus, tram, rail) travel across the whole country.
It works out about £1.40 per day (you’d be hard pushed to even get a single trip bus fair anywhere near that low here)
It is estimated the State cost of this to be c€3b split between entral and local governments.
Is there any valid reason why this couldn’t be replicated in the UK?
There’s only one reason why it can’t be done on Scotland right now.
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could this report in the herald be another english county line gang
Forty people have been arrested and 12 properties searched during the first four days of an intensive week long police operation across Tayside.Offences of those arrested include domestic abuse, child abuse, violent crimes and involvement in the supply of drugs as part of the five-day attempt to cut crime in the area.
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