Luton commuters being ripped off by over £600 per year

Travellers taking the same route on identical modes of transport would expect to pay the same price for one journey as they would for heading in the opposite direction.

But a new study by travel search engine gopili.co.uk into the cost of travelling along Britain’s most searched for routes reveals wildly diverse pricing.

Commuters from Luton pay a £3 difference in ticket price – costing them an extra £628 per year – and a ticket heading back to Reading from London is 43% more expensive than the reverse leg. The research also looked at the cost per mile of the most popular travel routes across the country and found some were as much as 27 times more expensive than others.

The research reveals shorter journeys have a higher cost per mile travelled. The five most expensive train routes (ranging between 31p and 44p per mile) spanned no more than 42 miles. In contrast, the cheapest five options (between 5p and 9p per mile) are for journeys over an average of 179 miles.

Rodolphe Morfoise-Gauthier, UK manager of gopili, said: “These variances in prices between both legs of a journey and between modes of transport provide customers with the chance to make savings that they may have been unaware of. People should undertake careful research before setting off on their journey to ensure they get the best value for money possible.”

MOST EXPENSIVE TRAIN JOURNEYS PER MILE

1) London to Reading (44p, 42 miles)

2) Luton to London (41p, 29 miles)

3) London to Luton (31p, 29 miles)

4) Reading to London (31p, 42 miles)

5) London to Cambridge (31p, 49 miles)