Transport costs London £75m

THE COST to London of the current rail strikes combined with a host of road traffic problems will be more than £75m. The transport crisis also means that commuters are wasting 209,000 hours every day in the additional time it is taking for them to reach work.

The Centre for Economics and Business Research, which specialises in transport studies, believes the cost of the rail strike has been aggravated by road closures and so-called traffic improvement schemes around the capital.

The South West Trains strike alone is estimated to cost £6.1m a day in lost gross domestic product. In addition, the closure of Tower Bridge for the next six weeks is thought to be costing £670,000 daily and the traffic diversions around the Angel, Islington are wiping £340,000 every day from London's economic output. Disruption around King's Cross due to the construction of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link has been calculated to cost £55,000 a day and is scheduled to last for three years.

'Londoners have greeted the new year with train strikes and road disruptions to add to the normal problems caused by long-running roadworks at King's Cross and various traffic-calming, or is it enraging, measures around the capital,' said Doug McWilliams of the CEBR.

The research body suggests, however, that the cost of road and rail problems lies as much in the frustration it causes to London commuters as in pure economic loss. 'The real cost is social,' said McWilliams.

More than one and a half million people commute into London and they are having to leave for work much earlier. They are also arriving home much later.

The CEBR's figures follow official Government data showing delays on the railways cost the British economy £445m last year or one-third of the total subsidy given to the 25 passenger train operators last year.

Today Europe minister Peter Hain admitted Britain has the worst railway system in Europe and said making it better was 'an intractable problem'.

Transport department officials believe rail passengers wasted about 3,400 years in aggregate as a result of delays in the first nine months of last year. The CEBR has calculated that the RMT's action affects 19% of London commuters. In the past, it has worked out that total closure of the London Underground system would result in £35m being lost each day from the capital's GDP.