Just a fifth of commuters have rated their train service as better than a year ago in a downbeat passenger survey carried out by consumer group Which?

In spite of roughly £925m being spent on the railway last year and fares rising by an average of 3.4pc at the start of 2018, only 20pc said they had noticed an improvement.

To make matters worse, 13pc of commuters thought their service had got worse in the past year and the remaining two thirds majority (67pc) thought there has been no change.

The three bottom-ranked train companies in the survey are all run by the Govia joint venture between Go-Ahead and Keolis. Strike-hit Southern rail scored just 28pc for customer satisfaction, with South Eastern and Thameslink & Great Northern both only just ahead on 39pc.

What was worse for Southern was that 37pc of its commuters thought the service had got worse in the past year, something the company will be hoping to rectify in 2018 once major infrastructure works on the railway around London Bridge is complete.