UK Edition
Rail passengers are being 'treated like animals' and suffering unbearable levels of overcrowding with services now carrying more than twice as many people as they should at peak times.
One in three commuters, equivalent to nearly 100,000 people, were forced to stand on services arriving into London last year.
Figures from the Department for Transport revealed the most overcrowded service was the peak service train from Brighton to London, which is designed to carry 420 passengers but regularly crammed 960 on board during a "typical" weekday.
It comes after MPs expressed fury with Govia Thameslink Railway, the company that runs the service, and suggested it was not “fit” to operate Southern rail.
The company has been heavily criticised for the chaos that has engulfed the Southern network, which has resulted in passengers travelling into London suffering months of delays, cancellations and station overcrowding.
Today the Rail, Maritime and Transport union announced guards on Southern Rail are to stage a five-day strike from August 8 as part of the long-running dispute over the future of their roles.
Top 10 most crowded trains
- 06:57 Brighton to Bedford
- 04:22 Glasgow Central to Manchester Airport
- 16:00 Manchester Airport to Edinburgh Waverley
- 18:00 Manchester Airport to Edinburgh Waverley
- 08:02 Beckenham Junction to Bedford
- 17:46 London Euston to Crewe
- 07:32 Woking London to Waterloo
- 16:26 Bedford to Brighton
- 06:51 Southampton Airport to London Waterloo
- 06:15 Edinburgh Waverley to Manchester Airport
Baroness Jenny Randerson, the Liberal Democrat Transport spokesperson said: “The railways are reaching crisis point. People are being forced to travel on dangerously overcrowded trains, sometimes for hours on end, and paying thousands of pounds a year.
“We would not treat animals like this, so how can we treat commuters like this? The Government need to put passengers at the heart of their franchise.”
The latest government statistics reveal the ‘top 10’ worst train services were between 61 per cent and 129 per cent over their passenger capacity in 2015.
The Department for Transport also revealed 35 per cent of commuters on services arriving into Blackfriars have been made to stand and almost a third of commuters have been unable to find a seat on trains into stations including Waterloo, Fenchurch Street and Moorgate.
The figures show that 94,279 people arriving into London stations between 8am and 9am have to stand, up from 26 per cent in 2011.
The second most crowded train into London was the 07:34 Great Western service from Didcot in Oxfordshire to Paddington, which has a capacity for 242 passengers but regularly carried 484 - 242 more passengers than its designed capacity.
The 7:32am Woking to London Waterloo train was more than 480 passengers over capacity in both spring and autumn with more than 1,000 passengers onboard the 12-carriage train.
More than 580,000 passengers arrived in London by train on a typical morning peak last autumn, an increase of 3.2 per cent over the previous year.
Rail Minister Paul Maynard said: “These statistics reveal the unprecedented scale of passenger demand, with journeys doubling in the past 20 years.
"We are investing a record £40 billion into the network to address this, delivering 3,700 extra carriages by 2019, and providing a huge boost to capacity through programmes like HS2, Crossrail, and the £6.5 billion Thameslink programme.
“These projects will inevitably cause some disruption whilst they are carried out, which is why we have capped regulated rail fares at RPI + 0 per cent for this parliament and why we are working hard with Network Rail and train operators to ensure that any inconvenience is minimised."
David Sidebottom, passenger director of Transport Focus, said: "Overcrowding is a daily struggle for many commuters.
"Our latest rail passenger survey found that only 52 per cent of commuters were satisfied with the amount of room they had to sit or stand on the train.
"In the long term we need a big increase in capacity. This means continued investment in new and longer trains to meet existing demand, as well as ensuring that overcrowding doesn't get worse as passenger numbers continue to increase."
Earlier this month the rail minister Claire Perry resigned after weeks of fending off demands for the crisis hit Southern Rail franchise to be taken over by the government.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan is among those calling for the government to strip Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR), which includes Southern, of its franchise.
All major cities in England and Wales apart from Newcastle experienced a growth in the number of rail passengers over the past year.
In London, more than 160,000 additional passengers travelled by train compared with autumn 2011, the figures showed.
Mick Whelan, general secretary of the train drivers' union Aslef, said: "It's long been our contention that privatisation has failed to deliver for rail passengers in Britain. We're disappointed - but not surprised - by these figures.
"Disappointed for those passengers - especially those who are pregnant, or disabled - who have to suffer like this, and for those tourists who come to this country expecting a first class public transport system in a first world economy."