In preparation for the passenger and mail classes feature, currently in progress on the passenger-and-mail-classes branch on Github, I am working on gathering together some information on the relative costs of different classes of passenger travel and postage.
This has not been very easy to find in some cases, but I do my best to reproduce what I have here.
Passengers
Rail
Firstly, rail fares from 1844 onwards until nationalisation in 1948 for
third class passengers had to be charged at no more than 1d/mile. The actual rates that they charged, so far as I can find, varied considerably. What I need to try to find is a
ratio between first and third class fares (and likewise second class fares).
This article refers to prices on the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1825 - passengers were initially conveyed on the whole 19km route for 1s (12d). The following year, passengers were allowed to travel in uncovered wagons for 9d. The passengers in the covered carriages thus paid 1.33x the price of the passengers in the uncovered wagons.
This website gives historical prices for travel on the Bournmouth Belle in the 1950s, with 3s 6d first class and 2s third class, the ratio of first to third in this instance being 1.7x.
This forum gives the prices of 7 day all lines rover tickets in 2009, being £650 for standard class and £990 for first class, giving a ratio of 1.52 first to standard class.

The above poster gives fares for an extension of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway to Warrington in 1831. Between Warrington and Newton, the fare is given as 1s 6d for first class and 1s for second class, giving a ratio of 1.5 first to second class. Between Warrington and Liverpool or Manchester, the first class fare is 4s 6d, and the second class fare is 3s 6d, giving a first to second class ratio of 1.285 (an unusually low ratio and curiously different to the Newton to Warrington fares).
That is all of the historical information that I have easily been able to find. Contemporary information is, of course, easier. Classes are regularly used in rail and air travel. The
National Rail Enquiries website gives the price of a standard class (flexible) London to York ticket to-morrow evening as £122 and a first class ticket as £200, giving a first to standard class ratio of 1.63. From Edinburgh to Glasgow, the fare is £8.80 standard class or £13.40 first class, giving a 1.522 first to standard ratio. From London to Bristol, the standard class fare is £102 and the first class fare £176.50, giving a first to standard class ratio of 1.73. From London to Manchester, the standard class fare is £169 and the first class fare £242, giving a first to standard ratio of 1.43x. From Leeds to Liverpool, the standard class fare is £32.10 and the first class fare £41.30, giving a first to standard ratio of 1.28. From London to Brighton, the standard class fare is £27.80 and the first class fare £41.70, giving a first to standard ratio of 1.5.
For my sample of contemporary (2017) peak time weekday rail fares, therefore, the standard class to first class ratio goes between 1.28 to 1.73, with a mean average of 1.515.
Air
Skyscanner gives a good impression of contemporary air fares.
London Heathrow to New York JFK on a Monday morning costs £1,258 in economy, £1,760 for premium economy, £4,999 for business class, and £8,126 for first class giving the following ratios of each class compared to economy:
premium economy: 1.39;
business: 3.57; and
first: 6.45
For a shorter haul flight, from London Heathrow to Frankfurt Main, economy class fares start at £270, premium economy is not available, business class starts at £578 and first class is also not available. This gives a ratio of 2.14 business to economy.
Bus/rail comparison
This website gives a good comparison between 'bus and Underground fares in London. The ratios vary from 0.35 in 2004 to 0.4 in 2007 to 0.38 in 2016.
Mail
In some ways, mail is more straightforward. Contemporary information from the Post Office can be found
here and
here.
A first class stamp currently costs £0.65 and a second class stamp costs £0.56, giving a first to second class ratio of 1.16. According to historical data from
this article in The Guardian newspaper, in 1980, a first class stamp cost £0.12 and a second class stamp £0.10, giving a first to second class ratio of 1.2, which seems therefore to have stayed constant for a number of decades.
Special delivery, meanwhile, costs £6.45, giving a ratio of 11.51 compared to second class post.
Edit: Speaking to my father, who is a stamp collector, he tells me that early air mail cost about 2.4 times the cost of surface mail. Special delivery is probably not a sensible comparison, as this involves payment for an additional feature (the "signed for" service) beyond transport that is not simulated in Simutrans.
Possible conclusions
The plan is to have 5 passenger classes and perhaps 3 mail classes. It seems evident that some of the rail fares above for passengers, although nominally of the same class, are likely to be targeting different markets with different levels of income.
Accordingly, mapping some sensible parts of the above ratios to the planned classes, we might use these figures (the classes given being equivalent of railway classes)
Class 0 ("very low"), 4th class: 0.6
Class 1 ("low"), 3rd class: 1.0*
Class 2 ("medium"), 2nd class: 1.33
Class 3 ("high"), 1st class: 1.5
Class 4 ("very high"), 1st class: 2.0
* This should be set to be equivalent to 1d/mile in 1900, and inflation adjusted for other years.
Edit: Addendum
Some very interesting calculations suggest a heartening degree of long-term consistency in these prices.
If we imagine paying an inflation adjusted 1d/mile from London to New York, we find that this is surprisingly close to the modern economy class air fare. So, New York is 3,470 miles, which would be 3,470d. Each old penny is 1/240th of a pound, so that would work out as £14.46 in the decimalised equivalent in 1900 figures. Adjusting this for inflation using the CPI from
this website, we get
£1,674.45, which is very close to the current premium economy fare, and 1.33 above the economy fare.
From New York to the original city of York, that distance is 174 miles from London. 174 / 240 = 0.725, giving £83.38 in 2017 terms, cheaper than the peak time standard class fare (which is 1.46 times higher than it), but more in line with the advance purchase standard class fare of £64.00 (and applying the suggested 0.6 ratio for very low/4th class above produces the figure of £50.03, which is very similar to the lowest possible fare of £53.00 travelling with an advance booking at an earlier time.
These figures, taking a simple pence per mile approach, also suggests that passengers are not likely much to benefit from the fare stages system (at least, for long journeys) that is rather more important for goods.
Edit: Addendum, Part II
Applying the same process for mail, assuming that first class mail is 1.2x second class mail and that air mail is 2.4x first class mail, we get:
Class 0 - ("low"), 2nd class: 0.83
Class 1 - ("medium"), 1st class: 1.0
Class 3 - ("high"), air mail/express delivery: 2.4