Train passengers face a 5% increase in rail fares in the New Year as ministers look to stop hikes from rising as high as 8%

Ministers are set to spare rail passengers from eye-watering fare hikes of 8 per cent in the New Year.

The Mail understands that next year’s annual increase could be kept below 5 per cent in a bid to ease the cost-of-living squeeze on hard-pressed workers.

Although this would still represent a substantial rise, it is much lower than the 8 per cent hike which would take effect in March 2024 if the Government used the same formula as it did for this year’s increase.

It is understood that the rise will be somewhere between 4 per cent and 6 per cent after Transport Secretary Mark Harper convinced Treasury officials to keep fares as low as possible to help long-suffering passengers, who have been hit with 18 months of strikes and high cancellation rates on some routes.

However, passenger campaign groups who have called for fares to be frozen will be disappointed.

Ministers are set to spare rail passengers from eye-watering fare hikes of 8 per cent in the New Year

The rise will be somewhere between 4% and 6% after Transport Secretary Mark Harper convinced Treasury officials to keep fares as low as possible to help long-suffering passengers

And with inflation projected to fall to around 2 per cent by Spring, ministers will likely face criticism for failing to go even further.

Treasury and Department for Transport officials are still thrashing out a final agreed figure but an announcement is expected as early as this week.

Ministers aligned this year’s fare rises in England, which took effect in March, with average earnings growth for July 2022. This was 5.9 per cent.

Figures published by the Office for National Statistics show that the same measure in July this year was 8 per cent.

Anthony Smith, chief executive of independent watchdog Transport Focus, said: ‘Nobody likes their fare going up, but after a year where many journeys have been blighted by disruption due to industrial action and patchy performance, passengers will be relieved to hear that fares will be capped below the Retail Price Index and any increases will be delayed until March next year.’

The cap on annual fare increases only applies to regulated fares, which account for about 45 per cent of tickets.

These include season tickets on most commuter journeys, some off-peak returns on long-distance routes and flexible tickets for travel around major cities.

Train operators set rises in unregulated fares, but usually increase them in line with the cap set by ministers on regulated ticket prices.

The annual fares rise used to take place on New Year’s Day, but since the pandemic has been shifted to March 1.

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