Thousands of commuters are being left stranded on railway platforms as trains skip stations to avoid being late.
Figures show that 47,600 “part- cancellations” — which includes missing at least one station on a route — were recorded in the past six months.
The number of times stops were skipped increased by 6.5 per cent in the first half of 2015-16 compared with the same period 12 months earlier.
Data from the rail watchdog showed that Govia Thameslink Railway, which includes Southern, Great Northern and Thameslink services through London, was the worst offender overall, with almost 13,000 part-cancellations.
The company said that skipped stations allowed delayed trains to “catch up” and recover their slot in the timetable. It was “never a decision taken lightly and only done at times of disruption so that fewer passengers are delayed overall”.
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The admission provoked outrage among MPs, who said that passengers who were paying some of the highest fares in Europe were being let down.
It follows anger over the alleged failure of many train companies to properly advertise compensation schemes to passengers who can claim money back for the most serious delays.
James Berry, Conservative MP for Kingston & Surbiton, told the Evening Standard: “Passengers who pay high fares — often only for the chance to stand on a packed train — rightly expect the trains will be punctual. However, the train operating companies’ solution can’t simply be skipping stations to make up for delays.”
The figures published by the Office of Rail and Road show the number of part-cancellations logged by train companies for each quarter over the past two and a half years.
It defines part-cancellations as a journey in which a train “calls at more than half (but not all) the booked stops and covers more than half the scheduled mileage”.
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The data showed that busy commuter services were much worse hit than long-distance trains.
A train is officially logged as “late” if it is delayed by five minutes on a short route and ten minutes on inter-city services.
Passengers are entitled to partial compensation when trains run at least 30 minutes late, with a full refund given to those delayed by more than an hour.
There were 5,558 part-cancellations on Southeastern, which runs trains into London, over the six month period, while 4,334 were logged by South West Trains.
Great Western Railway, which runs long-distance services between London and the southwest, recorded 2,732 part-cancellations.
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A Department for Transport spokesman said: “When a train service is running significantly late, operators can decide not to call at stations in exceptional circumstances in order to prevent major knock-on delays on the rail network, but we are absolutely clear that this should only be done when there is no other solution.”