Maman Poulet

The proof of the pudding is in the eating....or something...

Mental Meanderings and Verbal Collage highlight the recent application for fare increases by Irish Rail. Leaving aside the service and infratstructure issues of which I have commented on before I thought it might be useful to look at the misconceptions that rail travel in Ireland is expensive. All this takes me back to public transport economic lectures which I thought were drivel but must have stuck somewhere!

The European Commission website which is very inaccessable does have this data and also data on comparison of public subventions but I am dammed if I can find it at the moment. However Irish Rail have published comparisons of their fares on a cost per km basis and I include the graphs here. Of course I don't expect VC and MM to believe me so I'll be back to show other information when I can wade through the commissions database with further figures. ;-)

And I will predict the comments - 'but but but at least we get a seat, airconditioning etc etc for our money on the continent' - yes I agree but you can't compare the services on price basis without taking in to account the other factors.

When data is produced which looks for example at how much the French government give SNCF per year and how much the Irish government subvent Irish passengers we will find the real problem with regards to rail travel and costs in Ireland. And of course some PhD somewhere also documents the legacy of European investment in services versus the British investment in railways in Ireland during the industrial revolution and beyond which still impacts us. (Oh look an 800 years of repression, plundering and pillage post! United Irelander might be along to award plaudits!)

If the jpegs when published are unreadable the data can be accessed here.

posted by Maman Poulet @ 10/20/2005 02:10:00 p.m.