Train bosses must be told where to get off

Other tickets are rising by even more, an average of seven per cent, as the operators are free to set those without reference to the Government.

But the train operators may be making a big mistake in thinking that passengers will just accept these rises and cough up their money anyway. These unregulated fares are for journeys which are deemed "discretionary" - in other words, that trip up to town or the visit to friends which people may well not make if the train fare is too high.

And even on the regulated fares, the operators may have overplayed their hand. The reason why fares are regulated is because the train companies effectively have a monopoly. Try driving from, say, Guildford or Gillingham at 8am in the morning, and then finding a place to park in central London, and it is clear that most commuters have no choice.

However, more and more people are discovering that they do have an alternative. For example, with fuel prices now lower, commuters living far out of town may choose to drive part of their way to London and park cheaply near a closer station. This may well happen in Kent where the train operator, SouthEastern, is being allowed to increase season tickets by eight per cent, because of investment in new trains that will use the high-speed line to get into London but which do not even start until December. Coaches may also be an alternative option for commuters.

Most worrying for the train companies, though, is the possibility that they no longer have a captive market because with flexible working arrangements, passengers may decide to come in later, using cheaper tickets, or decide to work from home two or three days per week. All these options will mean fewer season tickets being sold, and these are the bedrock of the operators' income.

The train operators are already preparing to go begging to the government for more money. The most outspoken of their bosses, Keith Ludeman of Go-Ahead, let the cat out of the bag when he said that his company would go to the Department for Transport to renegotiate the contract if passenger numbers began to tail off. He said: "There is nothing to stop us, if demand falls off, going to the Department and asking to take services out."

He warned that operators would cut the length of trains in order to save on charges they have to pay to Network Rail for access to the tracks. Mr Ludeman also warned that operators may well cut the length of peak-service trains if passenger numbers decline.

The fiasco of this year's fare rises should lead to a rethink of the whole decision-making process on fare levels. Yet ministers must look to their own policy for the root cause of this problem: it was they who decided that they want to reduce the subsidy to the railways in the first place.

By pushing up fares so sharply, the operators have compounded the problem they face from the recession. But although it is easy for them to blame the Government, they signed their franchise contracts knowing that difficult times might lie ahead. If they come begging for more subsidy or ask to put fares up even more sharply, Geoff Hoon, the Transport Secretary, must tell them where to go.