Passengers on three of Britain’s busiest rail franchises are feeling less satisfied with their rail services than a year ago after reliability problems on two and higher-than-average fare increases on the other.

The figures for London Midland, Southern and Southeastern Trains bucked a trend of rising customer satisfaction revealed in the figures published by Passenger Focus, the passenger watchdog, on Tuesday. The figures showed 81 per cent of passengers were either very or fairly satisfied with their journey during surveys taken this spring, compared with 80 per cent in spring 2008.