RAIL passengers in Britain are paying the highest train fares in Europe, 30 years on from privatisation, a new study has found.

Campaign group Transport & Environment (T&E) looked at the average costs of more than 8,000 advance tickets for second-class weekday travel across 27 different operators in Britain, the European Union countries and Switzerland.

It concluded that “travelling by rail in the UK is particularly costly,” amid “private monopolies” and high infrastructure costs.

Fares on Great Western Railway and Avanti West Coast were respectively two-and-a-half and one-and-a-half times more than the European average, while Eurostar services were almost double the cost of other high-speed services.

T&E’s Victor Thevenet warned: “Sky-high ticket prices are driving passengers away from trains.

“To unlock rail’s full potential, tickets must be affordable.”

Campaign for Better Transport’s Michael Solomon Williams said: “With limited rail services and expensive tickets, it is little wonder that many UK travellers choose to fly to mainland Europe.

“There is massive untapped potential for new and more affordable services, with opportunities for new operators and new destinations.

“The government should produce an international rail strategy, with targets to shift journeys from air to rail, and work to reduce rail tolls, which are considerably higher than in other countries.”

The report concluded that the Labour government’s plans for public ownership under Great British Railways by 2026 could prove a turning point, calling it “a unique opportunity to rethink its offering all together, given the ongoing process to renationalise its railways.”

A spokesperson for the Rail Delivery Group, which represents operators, appeared to echo that sentiment, calling the creation of Great British Railways “an opportunity to bring industry together.”

Mick Whelan, general secretary of train drivers’ union Aslef, said: “This sad state of affairs is the result of 30 years of the privatisation and fragmentation of our railway network.

“The privateers have taken hundreds of millions of pounds from our railways and successive Conservative governments have pursued a policy of managed decline which has sold taxpayers, passengers and staff short.”

Welcoming the Labour government’s renationalisation plans, he added: “Now we are going to see the wheels and the steel put back together, an end to the failed fragmentation of our network and a railway brought back into the public sector, where it belongs, to be run as a public service, not for private profit.”

The Department for Transport was approached for comment.