I don't want this to come across as party political, so the text below comes from one newspaper and the image from another. (The text in the Telegraph article is very similar to that in the Guardian.)
British commuters ‘spend more on rail travel than other European workers’
Campaigners say British worker on average salary will spend 17% of wages on tickets once new fare rises come into effect.
A British worker on an average salary of £27,200 a year will be spending 17% of their wages on a £### monthly season ticket from Brighton to London once the fare rises come into effect, according to the analysis. Workers making similar journeys spend 12% of their salary on train fares in France, 9% in Germany, and 6% in Spain and Italy.
Michael Roberts, director general of the Rail Delivery Group, which represents operators and Network Rail, said: “At 2.2%, the average increase in fares in 2015 is the lowest for five years. We understand no one likes to pay more, especially to go to work. For every £1 spent on fares, 97p goes on track, train, staff and other costs while 3p goes in profits earned by train companies for running services on Europe’s fastest-growing railway.”
Since the coalition came to power in 2010, fares have increased by 27% according to the TUC.
Questions:
1) Work out the blanked out numbers (answers below).
2) If the English tickets mentioned here increased by the average amount, what did they cost a year ago? What did they cost in 2010?
3) Lots more possibilities!
Some answers:
In the article above the monthly ticket referred to costs £391.
Sources:
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/jan/02/british-commuters-rail-travel-europeans
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-transport/12078912/UK-commuters-spend-up-to-six-times-as-much-on-rail-fares-as-European-passengers.html
