So you'll only get savings if you can book far in advance with certainty – and there's the rub because it's not always easy to predict the future train journeys that you'll need to take.

Therefore, for the sake of our society and our planet, Campaign for Better Transport thinks the Government should invest more in the rail network so that rail travel becomes a real alternative to driving.

We can't always take advantage of advance tickets. While advance tickets are available on most journeys, they are only of use if we can take advantage of them, which we can't often do.

This is true in our personal life as well as our work life, because, for example, family members or customers can suddenly need to see you.

Walk-on fares are much higher than driving costs. When the unexpected happens and we need to travel, we compare the cost of driving with the cost of taking the train. Too often at present, driving wins out on cost grounds. Even though the cost of petrol has risen recently, it is often cheaper to jump in the car than to buy a walk-on rail ticket.

Despite today's higher petrol cost, the overall cost of motoring has fallen over the past couple of decades while the cost of taking public transport has risen.

The overall cost of motoring (including purchase, maintenance, petrol and oil, and tax and insurance) has remained at – or below – its 1980 level in real terms, even though fuel is higher than it was in 1980. Public transport fares, on the other hand, rose 40 per cent in real terms between 1980 and 2006.

It would be easy to blame the train companies for this – but they operate under franchises to the Government, which also regulates fares. And it's the Government that has decided that rail fares should rise in real terms, and that public funding for the railways should fall, and it has built these assumptions into rail franchises.

You might say – so what if people have to pay more for travelling by train? But there are good economic, social and environmental reasons why this approach should be reversed.

A high quality and affordable railway helps the economy by reducing road congestion and improving the way cities like Leeds and Sheffield operate, as well as the links between cities.

Expensive rail fares hurt social cohesion; unless fares are brought down, walk on, go anytime train travel will be the option for the wealthy.

We aren't hurt equally by high public transport costs. Half of households in the lowest income quintile have no car compared with just nine per cent in the highest income quintile.

Unless rail fares are brought down, car use will not decrease. While the number of journeys we're making by train has reached historically high levels, it has gone hand-in-hand with growth in other modes of transport, particularly car use.

In 1980, collectively we travelled 491 billion passenger kilometres. By 2006, we were travelling 65 per cent more – 812 billion passenger kilometres a year, with the distance travelled by cars increasing 77 per cent, more than other modes.

The Government's own forecasts say there will be a greater than 20 per cent increase in traffic levels and C02 from surface transport over the next decade.

With surface transport responsible for about 23 per cent of our country's carbon dioxide emissions, the Government will have a very hard time meeting its commitments in the Climate Change Bill unless the train becomes the cheapest and most obvious choice form of transport.

A vicious circle has been created. We've all bought cars because we aren't given good alternatives. And once we have the car, we use it instead of trains. Since we all have cars, a car-dependent society grows around us.

And there are two other good reasons for making rail travel cheaper: choice and competitiveness. With high petrol prices, people need an affordable alternative to car travel more than ever before.

Other European countries recognise this – they have
always seen the wider benefits of having an attractive and affordable rail network, and have put in the money to get one.

The Spanish have recently opened a new high speed line from Madrid to Barcelona, a distance roughly equivalent to London-Edinburgh. The ordinary fare? Just £21. If our competitors are doing this, we should too.

Should the Government really expect us to stand for this? The Government is relying on passengers to pay for planned growth in the network. Right now, passengers cover 50 per cent of the cost of the
passenger railway but the Government wants passengers to foot 75 per cent of the cost in a few years' time. But that prediction is assuming we'll all be happy to pay higher and higher fares.

What we're hearing is that people aren't.


Stephen Joseph is executive director of Campaign for Better Transport. Further details are available at www.bettertransport.org.uk