Some rail season tickets will rise by more than 10 per cent in January as train companies take advantage of loopholes in the system of fares regulation. The average season ticket will rise by 6 per cent under the Government’s price cap of inflation plus 1 per cent. The cap is based on the inflation figure for July and does not take account of any subsequent changes. This July, the rate was 5 per cent but it has now fallen to 4.2 per cent and is set to fall further.

Commuters on Southeastern will pay 8 per cent more because the Department for Transport claims that they are benefiting most from extra investment.

However, many passengers face even higher increases because the DfT only caps the average rise across the franchise and allows train companies to vary the price on individual routes by up to 5 per cent above inflation. Commuters between Gillingham and London will pay 10.2 per cent more, adding £280 to the cost of an annual season ticket. There will be a £260 rise (9.5 per cent) between Tonbridge and London.

An East Midlands Trains season ticket between Derby and Nottingham will rise by 8.9 per cent.

Anthony Smith, the chief executive of Passenger Focus, the passenger watchdog, said: “The companies are exploiting the rules to impose much higher increases on individual routes. The rules must be tightened to give passengers proper protection.”

He said that the increases would come at the worst time for many passengers, who were already struggling financially. “These fare rises hark back to a time of high inflation and spiralling energy costs. The economy is different now, but the seemingly unstoppable rail price express ploughs on.”

Unregulated fares, which include peak singles or returns, will rise by an average of 7 per cent, with some fares going up by more than 11 per cent. The highest increase among the unregulated fares are on Arriva’s Cross-Country services, which cover the whole of Britain and which will be rising by 11 per cent on average.

Train company chiefs said that the rises were necessary to pay for investment on the railways, but opposition MPs and transport unions condemned the increases.

The Conservatives said that passengers were “picking up the tab” for Labour’s failure to get costs under control. However, they declined to say whether they would cancel government plans to raise fares by inflation plus 1 per cent every year until 2014.

TSSA, the white collar rail union, said that the train companies had “a licence to print money”.

Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat transport spokesman, said that ministers should have frozen fares in the same way that fuel duty increases had been deferred to help motorists.

However, Michael Roberts, the chief executive of the Association of Train Operating Companies, said that since 1996, rail fares had risen by just 5 per cent in real terms and standard-class regulated fares were actually lower than they were in the year before privatisation in the mid1990s.

The Prime Minister’s spokesman said: “It is clear that passengers do have concerns about the value for money they receive from train companies. Secretary of State Geoff Hoon this week reminded operators that difficult economic circumstances will make these concerns more acute and called on them to bear this in mind when setting their fares.”

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