East Midlands Trains is announcing a range of initiatives to help its passengers beat the recession, as part of its January fare revision announced today. The initiatives include:
• low-priced megatrain.com train tickets extended to more routes
• new discounted off-peak car parking rates at train stations
• no increase in the price of Advance tickets bought online at eastmidlandstrains.co.uk
From 2 January 2009, East Midlands Trains will be making a number of changes to its fares.
Regulated fares, which include Super Off Peak tickets (to/from London), Off Peak tickets (for other routes) and Standard Class season tickets, will increase by 6%, whilst unregulated fares will increase by an average of 7.4%.
No price increases will apply to the following East Midlands Trains products:
• megatrain.com tickets
• Advance train tickets bought on the internet at eastmidlandstrains.co.uk
• Ranger and Rover tickets
• Weekend First supplements
Commenting on the changes, Tim Shoveller, Managing Director for East Midlands Trains, said, "We remain committed to providing a range of fares to suit all pockets. Our low-priced megatrain.com train tickets, priced from just £1 plus 50p booking fee, have proved so popular with our passengers that we have decided to extend them to more routes from January. And with over 3,500 megatrain.com tickets available each week, passengers can still bag a bargain to travel.
“It’s very important to remember that our income from fares goes directly into the investment programme to which we are committed in order to improve services to our passengers. Over the life of our franchise, we are investing £90m into making improvements to the railway. £57m of this investment is committed to projects either already well underway or planned to take place in the next 18 months. These include new stations, refurbished trains, better facilities at stations and improvements to depot facilities.
“These really are improvements that will bring huge passenger benefits such as increased reliability, better facilities and increased capacity where it’s needed most. These benefits will last for the duration of our franchise and beyond, and we therefore believe the new fares will still offer great value for money.”
megatrain.com fares are currently available on London services from Sheffield, Chesterfield, Derby, Nottingham, Loughborough, and Leicester. From January, this low-priced ticket range will be extended to new routes including Sheffield to Leicester, and Sheffield/Chesterfield/Nottingham to Peterborough and Norwich.
In addition, East Midlands Trains also has a range of Advance Purchase tickets, which start from just £8 one way when booking online. Over 150,000 of these cheap train tickets are available every week.