London to Wool, time, inflation, and my expectations

Link is a Wareham station to Lulworth Cove (bus to Wool Station) walk

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Updating this walk's web page after too long a gap. If you're in the area, it's a great walk, in an area of spectacular coastal walks..

In 2009, a London to Wool (between Southampton and Weymouth) day return was "~ £45 (third off with a Network Card)", with occasional £10 special offers on summer weekends.
Today, 17 years on, its ~ £84 day return (third off...), which, to me, seems crazy expensive.
I realise there's been inflation in between, and not all things rise at the same rate, but my expectation of ticket prices has lost all sense of reality.
There just seems something "wrong" with the industry that ticket prices are this high. The kind of wrong that HS2 costs 100BN, and but China/France/Spain do it for it 15BN
There doesn't seem to anything obvious causing this, but something is broken.

aavm said:

I realise there's been inflation in between, and not all things rise at the same rate, but my expectation of ticket prices has lost all sense of reality.

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£45 in 2009 money is £73.99 today, and with everything naturally rising, a £10 increase in relative term is not that outrageous (unlike some fares on the ECML)

aavm said:

There don't seem to anything obvious causing this, but something is broken.

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Mass subsidy reduction effort is the DfT calendar

Well https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/inflation/inflation-calculator uses CPI and reckons that £45 in 2009 is £74 today and £84 today would have been £51 then so it's a little ahead of inflation but not that much.

I think there's a tendency to lock in rough price bands for things when we're younger (say in your 20s or so) and then the older we get the more we struggle with how inflation compounds over longer periods of time and eventually starts to move those prices into what in our younger life would have been a totally different category of expenditure.

Unfortunately the government continues to insist on using RPI - a long discredited method of measuring inflation - when determining regulated fare increases. Off-Peak Day Returns aren't regulated but have mostly been increased in line with regulated fares.

The use of RPI accounts for fares being 32.5% higher than they would have been if CPI had been used since 2009. Moreover, from 2009-2013 and in 2025, fares were increased by RPI+1, which accounts for them being another 5.6% higher than if they were only increased by RPI.

These RPI(+x) increases have only slightly been offset in recent years, with the fares freeze this year and below-inflation increases in 2023 and 2024.

The only slight saving grace is the introduction of a cheaper Super Off-Peak Return around 10(?) years ago, but a few years ago SWR massively increased the restrictions on these tickets, rendering them virtually useless for day trips.

What was your income in 2009 and how much has it risen since then?

The BofE calculator is completely useless. There are as indicated above several ways to measure inflation - governments tend to choose whatever gives the best result for them at the time. For most purposes I find EH Net's Measuring Worth tool https://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/ppoweruk/today/ which uses five indices gives the best range for the average user. For price inflation I find the CPI and the RPI can be equally misleading. But as the chart below shows if it 'feels' too dear that's usually a reflection of the fact that your income has lagged behind. So linking regulated fares to RPI has I suspect by accident, given what is pointed out above, resulted as here in a bang on figure.

The results for the figure in the OP are as follows

tomh72 said:

uses CPI and reckons that £45 in 2009 is £74 today

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Arguing about 10p?

Hadders said:

What was your income in 2009 and how much has it risen since then?

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Perhaps a more relevant question would be “What does the job you were doing in 2009 pay now ?”
If I was still working full time, my salary would have risen more because of a change in job/promotion during this time period.

Haywain said:

Arguing about 10p?

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The fare is now £84 not £74 so it is a question of £10.

aavm said:

Wareham to Lulworth Cove Walk

Heathland to Corfe Castle, a great ridge walk, the ghost town of Tyneham, the rollercoaster South West Coast Path, and Lulworth Cove Length: 19.9km. Toughness: 7/10

www.walkingclub.org.uk

Updating this walk's web page after too long a gap. If you're in the area, it's a great walk, in an area of spectacular coastal walks..

In 2009, a London to Wool (between Southampton and Weymouth) day return was "~ £45 (third off with a Network Card)", with occasional £10 special offers on summer weekends.
Today, 17 years on, its ~ £84 day return (third off...), which, to me, seems crazy expensive.
I realise there's been inflation in between, and not all things rise at the same rate, but my expectation of ticket prices has lost all sense of reality.
There just seems something "wrong" with the industry that ticket prices are this high. The kind of wrong that HS2 costs 100BN, and but China/France/Spain do it for it 15BN
There doesn't seem to anything obvious causing this, but something is broken.

Click to expand...

Buy a Brighton to Wool Route "Not via London" Anytime Day Return £42.25 with network railcard. Then from Waterloo the appropriate return fare to the first station that your Bournemouth train will stop at in Both Directions. The most common would be Waterloo to Woking which is £17.30 Anytime day Return with a Network Card. Total £59.55

marshlinker said:

Buy a Brighton to Wool Route "Not via London" Anytime Day Return £42.25 with network railcard. Then from Waterloo the appropriate return fare to the first station that your Bournemouth train will stop at in Both Directions. The most common would be Waterloo to Woking which is £17.30 Anytime day Return with a Network Card. Total £59.55

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This is a fantastic reply Playing around, I found (on the National Rail website), that this fare is valid via Clapham Junction (as in Brighton-CLJ-Wool) which kind of makes sense, which makes it even cheaper

tomh72 said:

I think there's a tendency to lock in rough price bands for things when we're younger (say in your 20s or so) and then the older we get the more we struggle with how inflation compounds over longer periods of time and eventually starts to move those prices into what in our younger life would have been a totally different category of expenditure.

Click to expand...

This is kind of the right answer. I do remember that price as being to high for a day trip back then (apart from the go-anywhere-for-£10 offers what was then SWT had). I guess I just have to "rebase" my concept of train fares.

But then as now, something is just 'wrong'. How can driving be cheaper? We need the Ryanair guy to run Great British Rail (cringe at name), and price tickets for a 95% load factor.

aavm said:

But then as now, something is just 'wrong'. How can driving be cheaper? We need the Ryanair guy to run Great British Rail (cringe at name), and price tickets for a 95% load factor.

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Passenger numbers have never been higher, including on LNER. So unless passenger numbers come crashing, fare reduction is never going to be on the table

And without a massive infrastructure upgrade you won’t add that many more trains down most lines (increasing supply therefore reducing prices)