A staggering 11 million passengers have boarded a train at Cambridge this summer in comparison to only 200 at Shippea Hill less than an hour away.
Cambridge is the busiest station in the East of England according to the Office of Road and Rail (ORR) figures, with more than 11.5 million people entering and exiting over the past year.
However, a stark contrast is shown a 27-minute commute away at Shippea Hill - with it being crowned the second least busy station with only 276 people passing through.
It comes as figures from the ORR show that the number of people travelling on Greater Anglia trains from July to September increased by 4.2 per cent over the same period last year.
Martin Moran, Greater Anglia’s commercial director, said: “With the rising costs of travelling by car, and the new London emission zone charge which is due to be introduced next year, more and more people are choosing to travel by train.
“We have a range of great value fares including Groupsave, kids for £2 and advance fares starting from £5.
“Stansted Airport station has overtaken Chelmsford to become the second busiest station on our network.
“More than 30 per cent of people who use Stansted Airport travel there by train due to the frequency and convenience, and great value fares which start from just £7.”
Cambridge was the most popular station with 11,530,238 passengers, second was Stansted Airport with 8,934,250 followed by Norwich in sixth place with 4,156,302.
Greater Anglia say that most of the least-busy stations on the network are request stops, meaning trains will only stop if passengers ask them.
Buckenham topped the least busy chart with 202 passengers, followed by Shippea Hill at 276 and Lakenheath with 468.
Greater Anglia is set to replace every train in its fleet with brand new trains with more seats, fast free Wi-Fi, plug points and air conditioning in the coming years.
The first new train is currently being tested and is due to be in service from the middle of next year. All trains will be replaced by the end of 2020.
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