NEWS RELEASE: Consumers Reject Rail Fare Rise
A transport consumer group says that the Independent Pricing and Regulatory 
Tribunal (IPART) should completely reject CityRail’s proposal for increased 
rail fares. Allan Miles, a spokesman for Action for Public Transport (APT), 
said that the proposal was unjustified, unacceptable and insulting.

“In the three years since the last rise,” Mr Miles said, “CityRail has 
slashed services, slowed the trains, and failed to overcome overcrowding and 
reliability problems. Why should the commuters pay more?”

Mr Miles admitted that more money is needed to fix the problems, but he said 
it should not come from discontented users. “The whole community benefits 
from an efficient rail system,” Mr Miles said, “and the government must 
channel more funds into the infrastructure.” He said that perhaps when the 
trains provide a service that is fast, frequent, reliable, clean and safe, 
then the users might readily pay more. “Such a service would even attract 
people out of their cars,” he said.

“It is misleading of the government to talk about a 2.9% increase in fares,” 
Mr Miles said, “when some fares will rise by up to ten times that amount.” 
He said that the off-peak return tickets will rise by upwards of 22%, with 
an increase of 38% for short trips up to five kilometres.

Mr Miles said that the public anger over this proposal is reflected in the 
number of submissions received by IPART. “By today,” Mr Miles said, “114 
public submissions were on the web site, an unprecedented number for this 
type of review. I have not looked at all of them,” he said, “ but in random 
samples I have only found one that supports a fare rise, and that was with 
some caution.”

“It is worth noting’ Mr Miles said, “that all of these submissions have been 
sent by private individuals, obviously all regular rail users. They 
challenge CityRail’s claims that things are getting better.” Mr Miles said 
that a few contributors admitted that cancellations have been less frequent 
over recent months, but they would not consent to a rise until the trend 
proved permanent.

Mr Miles said that the closing date for submissions is 31st March, so there 
is still time to write one. The CityRail submission is on the IPART website at
<a href=http://www.ipart.nsw.gov.au/>http://www.ipart.nsw.gov.au/</a>.

Submissions may be sent to IPART at PO Box Q290, QVB Post Office NSW 1230, 
or by email to
<a href=mailto:transport@ipart.nsw.gov.au>transport@ipart.nsw.gov.au</a>.

Mr Miles said that, while it is OK for private submissions to just list 
examples of failures or complaints, it is preferable if these can be linked 
to specific statements or claims in CityRail’s document.

<b>Contact:</b> Allan Miles 9516-1906 or Kevin Eadie 9819-6052