Despite frozen fares, London public transport is the most expensive in the world
By Michal Skýpala
Even though mayor Sadiq Khan froze most of the fares until 2020, Londoners still have to go deep in their pockets to afford commute on public transport. A monthly travel card is £135 and, according to a recent Deutsche Bank report, making it the most expensive travel card in the world. Public transport is more than a quarter of the price cheaper in Dublin, that is ranked second costliest city after the UK capital.
However, in an article published by BBC, the Transport for London (TfL), the the integrated transport authority responsible for delivering Mayor of London Sadiq Khan's strategy, negated these stats. The authority said that the findings " do not show the true cost of transport in other countries".
On the bright side, the report acknowledges that the cost of travel in the capital dropped since 2014, when commuters paid even £30 more than now. TfL also likes to point out that London has an extensive collection of travel discounts with free or discounted travel for children, the over-60s, students and veterans.
Last year, Mayor Sadiq Khan, had delivered on his election promise pledging residents ‘won’t pay a penny more’. However, that applied only to single fares and Londoners were disappointed by price hikes of oyster cards in January.
TfL explained that the Mayor could not stop the 2.3% rise in cost of travel cards as it is set by the UK government through train operating companies. TfL needs to cut £16 billions from its budget by 2020/21 to become self-sufficient with its operating costs. Frozen fares is not helping the situations as TfL revealed in February that its income from single fares was down by £90 million compared to last year.
Residents of London still don’t have it cheap even in other means of transport. Report ranks it the third most expensive for car hire and tenth for petrol. Taxis fared slightly better, ranked 20th of the 47 surveyed world metropoles. Generally, 'mega cities' like Tokyo, New York City or Mumbai ranked very low by analysts mostly due to high living costs, crime, pollution and long commuting time. The Deutsche Bank report resolved on a lighter note pointing out, "This is highly subjective as one person's long commute may be another person's chance to catch-up on Netflix, " .
