'Animals travel in more comfort'

The Government was today condemned for putting animals before rail passengers as official figures showed four in 10 train journeys were overcrowded last year.

Just over half the population, or 31.6 million people, are estimated to have suffered congested train trips in 2001 where not enough seats were available.

Ministers were accused by the Liberal Democrats of "total inaction on overcrowding" by failing to bring in regulations - despite introducing The Welfare of Animals (Transport) Order to regulate overcrowding of transported animals almost as soon as they came to power.

Lib-Dem transport spokesman Don Foster said today: "It is crazy that the proper action has been taken for animals but not for humans.

"Delays and cancelled services are out of control, and now we find that the Government has lost its grip on overcrowding. A total of 39 per cent of passenger journeys are overcrowded. This affects a huge number of passengers." The Department of Transport's own figures are highly embarrassing for the Government as it launches its 10-year rail plan today.

Transport Minister David Jamieson said in July that " reducing overcrowding is a key target of our 10-year plan, particularly for commuter services".

The Evening Standard's "cattle truck commuting" campaign last year exposed the appalling lack of space on many rush-hour journeys in and out of London.

The worst conditions in the country were on Connex South Eastern, which operates the busiest commuter routes on the network.

Forty seven per cent of its passengers were dissatisfied with the number of seats available, according to a survey in the autumn by the Strategic Rail Authority.

All six train operators with the highest levels of passenger anger over over-crowding were in the London area. WAGN customers also had 47 per cent dissatisfaction, while Thameslink had 45 per cent, First Great Eastern 44 per cent, South Central 43 per cent, and South West Trains 41 per cent.

The Government's monitoring system for overcrowding was described by Mr Foster as " limited, outdated and tells us what we already know".

Almost a billion passenger journeys are made each year, making 379.3 million overcrowded journeys. With the average passenger making 12 journeys a year by train, that leaves 31.6 million people affected.

The average traveller spends 16 hours per year in a train, undertaking an average journey of one hour and 20 minutes. People therefore spent a total of 505 million hours on crowded trains last year, or 57,686 years.

Both SWT and Connex were fined more than £1 million each for running trains with not enough carriages which made the already packed trains even more overcrowded. South Central was fined £688,000 for the same offence.