Is this the end of the line for public transport?

News that rail fares are to rise by 1.6 per cent in January, and public transport fares in London by 2.6 per cent, would normally be met with outrage – how dare they jack up the fares again when the trains are late and I can’t get a seat. Yet this time around the news has hardly raised a whimper. After all, who uses trains any more? There’s some sort of semblance of normality returning to shops, pubs, restaurants. But larges parts of the public transport network have been all but abandoned – even though the government is no longer officially telling us not to use them. 

Department for Transport figures from Monday show use of national rail services to be running at just 23 per cent of the level they were at the beginning of March. Tube journeys are running at 30 per cent, London bus services at 53 per cent and buses outside London at 41 per cent.