UK reforms train travel as pandemic derails sector

UK reforms train travel as pandemic derails sector

LONDON: Britain yesterday unveiled long-awaited reforms of the country’s railways, including a new centralized price and reservations system, but the government insisted it was not backtracking on the sector’s privatization. Launching a new public body, Great British Railways, whose name has echoes of nationalized British Rail in the last century, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s pro-privatization government will take greater control of the sector. As part of the reforms, the Conservative government will offer flexible season tickets, with office workers continuing to work from home amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“Great British Railways will integrate the railways, owning the infrastructure, collecting fare revenue, running and planning the network, and setting most fares and timetables,” the Department for Transport said in a statement. The government insisted its plan was “not renationalization”, adding it believed state control “failed the railways”. “Rather, it is simplification… (and) private companies will be contracted to run the trains, with stronger competition to run services,” it added.

Service upgrade

Britain’s rail tracks are already in state hands but the trains are run by mostly private companies enjoying large government subsidies. And since privatization of the sector in the mid-1990s, the taxpayer has been forced to take control of financially-struggling franchises. Johnson believes