Rail commuters will be looking nervously at the announcement of July’s inflation figure next Wednesday. That’s because they know that the annual rail fares increase to be imposed in January is usually linked to that month’s RPI.
Last year they escaped relatively lightly as ministers realised that a rise based on last July’s 12.3 per cent would have caused a political train crash, especially given the poor performance of a network beset by strikes and random cancellations. So they split the difference (sort of) and imposed a 5.9 per cent rise instead, still by far the highest in more than a decade.
