Overview
- The freeze covers regulated fares in England, including season tickets, peak commuter returns and selected off-peak returns, affecting more than a billion journeys and roughly 45% of fares, while unregulated tickets remain at operators’ discretion.
- The measure will be set in the upcoming Budget for March 2026 to March 2027, heading off a rise that would have followed the retail price index, reported at about 4.8% for next year.
- Illustrative savings include £315 for Milton Keynes–London, £173 for Woking–London and £57 for Bradford–Leeds for typical three-days-a-week flexi-season users, with commuters on pricier routes expected to save over £300 a year.
- The policy sits within the Railways Bill to establish Great British Railways as a publicly owned operator and to modernise ticketing with tap-in/tap-out and digital options, alongside plans for superfast on-train Wi‑Fi.
- Rail unions, passenger watchdog Transport Focus and Campaign for Better Transport welcomed the move, the Conservatives offered qualified support while criticising timing, and ministers indicated the fiscal cost is in the low hundreds of millions.