SWINDON commuters pay most for rail season tickets to London at £8,200 a year, according to a new report. 

The Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA) said long distance commuters were spending over £9,000 a year in rail fares and station car parking charges as it staged a protest in Peterborough, with further demonstrations planned soon.

The most expensive season tickets to London are: 

Swindon at £8,200, up 93% since rail privatisation 20 years ago

Great Yarmouth (£7,668, up 56%)

Peterborough (£7,296, up 87%)

Reading4,188, up 76%).

TSSA leader Manuel Cortes said: "It is an absolute disgrace the enormous burden that has been heaped on commuters' shoulders since the railways were sold off 20 years ago. Those on average earnings are paying a third of their salaries just to get to work, the equivalent of funding a £200,000 mortgage every year.

"Season tickets were meant to protected when the railways were sold off. But while commuters and their families have suffered a harsh squeeze on their household budgets , with annual tickets doubling in many cases since 1995, the fat controllers running the private rail firms have seen their own salaries rocketing ahead."

He called on Labour leader Ed Miliband to announce a 12-month long rail fares freeze as part of an overall review of private rail franchises if he wins the general election in May.

"It is time to stop the annual persecution of commuters who have no alternative to paying these prohibitive and punishing increases. Recent figures from the ORR showed that passengers paid out £9 billion last year while the private rail firms made a net contribution of just £43 million to the industry," he said.

A spokesman for the Rail Delivery Group, representing Network Rail and operators, said: "Once again the TSSA is being deliberately misleading by focusing on some of the most expensive fares while ignoring cheaper deals and the effects of inflation.

"Overall, the average price of a season ticket is less than £2,500, equivalent to around £5 a journey. For the decade to 2013 regulated fares, including season tickets, rose by above inflation as per the policy of successive governments to switch a greater share of rail costs from taxpayers to passengers.

"Passenger numbers have doubled in the last two decades, thanks to better services and discounting on unregulated fares, resulting in the amount of money operators pay back to government to reinvest in the railway increasing fivefold to £2 billion."

The RDG said the average season ticket holder travels 9,600 miles a year, costing 25p a mile, adding that the distance between Great Yarmouth and London is 137 miles, which averages out at 12p a mile, while the distance between Peterborough and London is 83 miles, which averages out at 18p a mile.

The Rail Delivery Group added that the TSSA was also "ignoring" the effects of inflation, which rose by 72% between 1994 and 2014.

And a Department for Transport spokesman said: "We are investing record amounts in our railways as part of our long-term economic plan and passenger fares have a crucial role to play in funding these improvements, which will bring more services, more seats and modern trains.

"However, we recognise passengers' concerns about the cost of rail travel. That is why we have frozen regulated rail fares for the second year in a row."