Railways: Fares
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, pursuant to the Answer of 20 October 2025 to Question 78691 on Railways: Concessions, whether Great British Railways plans to use ticket pricing to (a) manage demand and (b) reduce crowding on trains.
Answered by Simon Lightwood
Great British Railways (GBR) will be empowered to deliver industry-wide modernisation and fares reform, including considering the most effective ways to manage issues such as crowding.
We are already making progress in considering options to address this, including through supporting LNER in trialling easier to understand fares on their long-distance network between the London area and Edinburgh and the North East. This aims to address the inefficient and unacceptable situation where some ‘peak’ trains run nearly empty while some ‘off-peak’ trains are crowded. We are doing this by moving towards more flexible, demand-based pricing – a model commonly used for long-distance rail in countries such as France, Italy, and Spain. The results of this trial will be carefully considered before any decisions on next steps are taken.
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