Alison McGovern – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Transport

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Alison McGovern on 2015-02-10.

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what estimate he has made of the change in real terms of the cost of travelling by (a) private car, (b) bus, (c) train and (d) domestic air flight between (i) 2000 and 2010 and (ii) 2010 and 2014.

Mr Robert Goodwill

The Department for Transport published statistics on travel costs, based on data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), in the Transport Statistics Great Britain compendium.

Data from the independent ONS suggests that:

(i) Between 2000 and 2010 the real cost of motoring, including the purchase of a vehicle, declined by 8%, bus and coach fares increased by 20% and rail fares increased by 15% in real terms.

(ii) Between 2010 and 2014 the real cost of motoring, including the purchase of a vehicle, decreased by 5%, bus and coach fares increased by 2% and rail fares increased by 6% in real terms.

(iii) The costs of travelling by air are not available from ONS data. However information is available based on fare data from the Civil Aviation Authority. The real cost of the average UK one-way air fare, including taxes and charges, covering domestic flights from 2000 to 2010 declined by 41% and from 2010 to 2013 declined by 4%, reflecting a range of factors including increased competition between airlines. Estimates for 2014 are not yet available.