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  3. Fair Fares Railways: Cheaper Tickets Will Not Solve Rail’s Problems Most of the time, parliamentary committee reports embody

Fair Fares Railways: Cheaper Tickets Will Not Solve Rail’s Problems Most of the time, parliamentary committee reports embody

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问题           Fair Fares Railways: Cheaper Tickets Will Not Solve Rail’s Problems
    Most of the time, parliamentary committee reports embody every foreign stereotype of the British—dry, reserved and slightly dull, with only the occasional flash of sarcasm to lighten the mood. Not so those of the transport committee. Its latest report, on rail fares, accuses the rail industry of " holding passengers to ransom " with "extravagant" fares and an "impenetrable jungle" of ticket types.
    Some of these criticisms are fair. Ticketing arrangements, especially for long distance journeys, are Byzantine: the National Fares Manual describes over 70 ticket types within its 102 pages. Stung by public criticism, several big train companies, including Virgin, GNER and First Great Western, promise to simplify things.
    The MPS are on shakier ground with their complaints They point to the amount of state money given out to the railways— ￡4.4 billion this year, with ￡5. 3 billion planned for next year—and argue that train firms should be forced to cut prices. Costly tickets, they claim, are " pricing many passengers out of the market".
    That is a tough argument to sustain at a time when more people than ever are using the railways. On some parts of the network, overcrowding, not under-use, is the biggest problem, with commuter routes into big cities such as London, Leeds and Manchester especially jammed. Fares on these routes are already capped. That’s unwise, says Stephen Glaister of Imperial College. " If there is traffic jams in the system, then the economically correct solution is higher prices," he says. "Otherwise you just end up with shortages and queues." Giving railway firms greater freedom to set their own prices would let them spread demand around peak times, cutting traffic jams.
    The only way to reduce traffic jams and prices together is to do things like lengthening platforms and upgrading signals,. which would mean more people could be carried in the busiest areas. That would require tough decisions. A big improvement to the railway network would be expensive, and the government has shown little enthusiasm for increasing subsidies still further. Extra cash could be found by closing little-used (and heavily subsidised) rural lines, but that would be unpopular with fans of rail transport, who argue that branch lines provide a vital service to the poor and the earless.
    The report occasionally hints at such dilemmas, only to shy away from discussing them in a satisfactory way. The transport committee plans a broader look at rail policy next year. Perhaps then it will do a more thorough job.
Which of the following is one of the chief problems confronting the train companies?
选项 A、They are blamed by the public for overcharging.
B、They have no freedom of pricing.
C、They lack funds to upgrade main-line services.
D、They have not sufficiently used rural lines.
答案C
解析 本题考查事实细节。第一段末句提到，交通委员会报告指控铁路行业用昂贵的票价和复杂的车票种类“勒索乘客”。第二段接着就复杂的车票种类展开论述，指出对它的批评是公平的，而且由于公众的批评，一些大型铁路公司承诺作出改善。由此可知，公众批评的只是复杂的车票种类，不包括昂贵的票价，[A]与事实不符。第四段末句作者谈到，给予火车公司更大的自由制定票价可以让它们在高峰期分散需求，从而减少拥堵。这是在谈论定价自由带来的益处，但不能由此推出铁路公司没有定价的自由，排除[B]。第五段前三句提到，对铁路网的改良可以提高铁路在繁忙地区的载客容量，但其费用昂贵，而政府又不愿意提高补贴。这里谈的是对主干铁路线的改良。因为紧接着第四句就提到，额外的资金可以从关闭乡村铁路支线中得到，因此[C]符合文意。[D]本身是事实，但文中提到乡村铁路支线只是就是否关闭它展开讨论，其未被充分利用并没有被看作是铁路公司面临的主要问题。
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