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UK commuters spend over three times more of their salary on rail fares than most European passengers
As many people prepare for their first day back to work after the Christmas break, rail campaigners were recently (Thursday) warned that British commuters could be spending over three times more of their salary on rail travel than passengers on publicly-owned railways in France, Germany, Spain and Italy.
The TUC’s and rail union’s Action for Rail (AfR) campaign has compared average earnings with season tickets covering similar commuter routes across Europe. This analysis, published recently, reveals that commuters using privatised rail services in the UK are paying much higher fares and spending substantially more of their wages on rail travel to work than commuters using publicly-owned trains elsewhere in Europe.
Taking into account fare increases, the analysis gives the example of UK a worker on an average salary who is now spending nearly 14 per cent of their monthly wages on a £299 monthly season ticket from St Albans to London St Pancras. However, over in Europe workers making similar journeys in Germany and France spend around four per cent of their salary on train fares, in Spain three per cent and in Italy just one per cent.
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