Steve Montgomery, chairman of the Rail Delivery Group, said: “The railway can grow and become more customer focused, with new opportunities for hundreds of thousands of people working on it, but to do that we must adapt, and we cannot take more than our fair share from the taxpayer.”
Emergency changes to the financial structure of the railways were brought in when the pandemic struck and have now been made permanent as part of plans to end franchising. The Government now collects fares and pays operators a flat fee, leaving taxpayers exposed when passengers stay away.
Today’s announcement comes alongside separate talks between the Rail Industry Recovery Group, a Whitehall body set up to consider the future of Britain’s railways after the pandemic.