March commuters face an unwelcome price hike on their return to work – as the annual season ticket to Kings Cross breaks the £6000 barrier for the first time.

New fares are set to add hundreds of pounds to annual travel, as season ticket prices increased by 3.2 per cent from yesterday (January 2).

The New Year price hike will push the price of a March to London season ticket to £6116 a year.

In Germany it costs £3,955.92, (4.395 euros) for a BahnCard100 - an annual ticket that covers travel across their entire rail network, £2160.08 less than a March to Kings Cross season ticket.

Cambridgeshire Labour MEP Alex Mayer has slammed the 36 per cent price hike since 2010 and says Britain needs to “learn from other European railways”.

Britain’s long suffering rail commuters will spend up to five times more of their income than their European counterparts as a result of January’s price hike.

Figures show on average Brits spend 55p per mile travelling by rail - it costs half that in Ireland at 27p and Belgium at 24p, while German passengers pay just 19p a mile.

Since 2010 British rail fares have risen three times as fast as earnings even though commuter satisfaction has dipped to a 10-year low.

Alex Mayer MEP said: “Give commuters a break. Surely after the delays, cancellations and overcrowding on the railways last year, the government should not be allowing fares to increase faster than many people’s wages. We need to be encouraging people onto trains not putting obstacles in the way.

“It is time to learn from Europe. Startlingly it costs more for the 90 mile commute from March to London than it does to travel across the whole German rail network.

“The Government could have used its power to cap regulated fares, instead they have let train companies off the hook and failed to stand up for passengers.”