Some very revealing data from the Department for Transport

Well done to Olivia- my only student to get today's 'starter answer' of 13 pence correct. This is the subsidy per passenger mile for Southeastern, our local train franchise. Read on to find out more details about these stats, and the figures for your local trains...

I've been discussing with students the issues surrounding the West Coast mainline franchise fiasco on several occasions over the past few weeks. In particular my Economists were amazed that the Dft had forgotten to add inflation into their figures! And now comes this data on the cost to taxpayers of each train franchise, beautifully broken down into cost per passenger mile. Can you guess which was the only train company to not be receiving a subsidy last year?

This BBC News article explains the story nice and clearly, but for the full data- including an excellent graph separating out each franchise- go to the Dft website .