The country's most overcrowded rail services have been revealed in new government statistics released today.
A 5.40am Southern train service from Uckfield in East Sussex coming into London Bridge was the most overcrowded with 267 passengers crammed into a two-carriage space designed for just 107.
This service had 160 passengers in excess of capacity and registered a standard class load factor of 250% - number of standard class passengers in relation to the maximum capacity.
The figures were released in two tables covering Spring 2017 and Autumn 2017. Only three services featured trains not making connections to London and all three were connected to Manchester Airport.
These included the overall second most overcrowded service with a load factor of 211% running at 4.22am from Glasgow Central to Manchester Airport. The TransPennine Express service had 403 passengers on a four-carriage service designed for 191 people.
The fourth most crowded service overall was also from Manchester Airport to Edinburgh at 4pm in the autumn with a load factor of 202%, while the 4.00pm spring service from Manchester Airport to Edinburgh had 163 people in excess of capcity with a load factor of 186%.
Spring
A 7.55am Great Nothern service from Cambridge to London King's Cross came second overall in the spring list with 427 passengers struggling into a four-carriage space designed for 203 people. This service had a load factor of 210%.
A 5.11pm spring Thameslink Sutton to Luton service passing through London St Pancras had the most passengers in excess of capacity with 776 - 1,579 people in an eight-carriage train designed for 803. This train had a standard load factor of 197%.
Autumn
After Manchester Airport to Glasgow and Manchester Airport to Edinburgh , the most overcrowded service in the autumn was a King's Cross to Royston Great Northern service with a load factor of 199% and 239 passengers in excess of capacity.
Morning arrivals in excess of capacity
Morning peak time arrivals into major cities typically carry the largest numbers and are more in excess of capacity than evening departures.
Across a one-hour morning peak 40% of services into London had passengers in excess of capacity and across the three-hour peak 27% of them did.
Manchester had 27% of arrivals across the one-hour morning peak carrying passengers in excess of capacity and 16% across the three-hour peak.
Cambridge recorded 29% of services at the one-hour morning peak and 13% across the three-hour peak in excess of capacity. Cardiff had 23% for the one-hour and 15% for the three-hour, while Leeds had 22% of services arriving in excess of capcity on the one-hour morning peak and 15% across the three-hour peak.
Wider statistics
In line with the fall in rail journeys across Great Britain, daily rail passengers fell in Leeds, Liverpool, London and Manchester between 2016 and 2017, while passengers numbers in several other major cities increased.
Over 1 million passengers arrived into London on a typical day, with 55% arriving in the morning peak.
Birmingham, the second busiest city, had eight times fewer daily arrivals than London with 128,100.
While the number of rail passengers fell during the day, morning peak passengers increased overall for all major cities outside of London.
Crowding in 2017, measured using passengers in excess of capacity, was highest in London (5.4%), followed by Cambridge (4.8%) and Manchester (4.3%).
For major cities, crowding levels have not shown a clear pattern but on balance, crowding has increased outside of London, and has fallen in London.
King’s Cross had the highest crowding levels in the morning (9.0%) and the afternoon peaks (5.6%) of the central London stations in 2017.
In the 2017 morning peak, 23% of passengers were standing on trains busiest point. arriving into London, and for Blackfriars this was 36%.
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