United Kingdom

 

The McNulty Report - Changes to the future of UK train travel

The long-awaited McNulty Report didn’t pull any punches. With UK railway costs 30% higher than the rest of Europe, the document gives ambitious ideas for reform, with a final goal of cutting the cost of UK railways by £1bn each year by 2019!

 

What’s it all about?

 

McNulty was commissioned by the Government to identify ways in which the operation of the UK’s railways could be made more efficient.

 

McNulty’s eagle eye found the following key problems:

• poor long-term planning
• a fragmented governance structure
• a badly incentivised fares structure

 

The effect of these findings is that the £5.2billion-a-year cost of running the railways is 30% higher than the rest of Europe, with passengers in the UK paying a third more for fares!

 

In  more detail

 

In order to achieve a saving of 1 billion pounds each year until 2019, McNulty’s suggestions may affect the commuter in the following ways:

• peak-time fares could fall, while others just outside the rush hour could increase, ending the anomaly where commuters often pay more than double for the same journey on trains departing just minutes apart
• long-distance commuters, often paying more than £5,000 a year, would benefit from a system where season tickets become progressively cheaper as journeys get longer
• smartcard metering would mean both reduced ticketing costs and improved passenger experience through greater integration and ease of purchase

 

Responding to McNulty, Secretary of State for Transport, Philip Hammond said that if efficiency savings are made “our aspiration should be to put the era of the above-inflation average rises in regulated fares behind us.”

 

McNulty himself said that his report is not the last word, but instead should be seen as the “ first word”. It has fired the starting gun on the most significant set of changes to the railways since privatisation fifteen years ago.

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