Tube pricier than Concorde

London's Underground is now so costly that it boasts the single most expensive journey in the world. The price of a single ticket for one stop - say, Covent Garden to Leicester Square - is so high, at pounds 1.30, that it would be cheaper to travel the same distance by Concorde.

The pricier-than-a-supersonic-jet fare is part of the new scale of rates for the Tube whose charges, already the world's highest, go up above the rate of inflation today - as they have every year for the past 10 years.

The increase, of 4.45 per cent on average, roughly 1 per cent above inflation, and 8.3 per cent for the central-zone ticket, is an attempt to counter the pounds 700m cut in government subsidy for investment in the next three years.

Only Dublin, at pounds 6.04, costs more than London (pounds 5.38) for an average weekly fare. According to the London Research Centre, Madrid has the cheapest network in Europe at pounds 2.65, while commuters in Paris pay pounds 4.46 and in Copenhagen pounds 4.68.

Travel in London costs 20 per cent more than in Berlin, 30 per cent more than in Toronto, 36 per cent more than in Sydney and Amsterdam, and 68 per cent more than Rome.

London receives no subsidy towards running costs - they must all be met from ticket sales. Rome has the highest subsidy, at 78 per cent, Amsterdam has 70 per cent and even Dublin has 4 per cent.

According to the Capital Transport Campaign, if London had a subsidy similar to the European average, the weekly cost of travel would drop to pounds 3.

It is not just a question of cost: the metro systems of Moscow, St Petersburg and Prague, comparatively much cheaper for Westerners, are renowned for fast, efficient and reliable service. Compared with Paris, Moscow or Tokyo, London Underground services are notoriously irregular. In Paris, special clocks at the end of each platform tell drivers exactly how many seconds early or late they are. The trains are precisely and evenly loaded and long waits are rare.

Passenger lobby groups believe that for the Underground, the world's oldest and largest metro, 1998 will be crunch year, when the system becomes unable to cope with unexpected breakdowns, delays and signal failures. Rufus Barnes of the London Regional Passengers' Committee said: "There won't be enough money to keep up the current level of maintenance. If all the escalators suddenly fail at a major station then it may have to close because they won't have the money to fix them."

The increase in fares on the Tube will mean an extra pounds 52m in revenue, but it appears to be the smallest of drops in the largest of oceans: there is already a backlog of repairs and improvements totalling pounds 1.2bn.