RAIL companies which operate services that travel to and from York Station were among those with the highest cancellation rates and the most delayed trains last year.

Passenger groups urged the industry to learn the lessons of May 2018, when new timetables led to chaos on large parts of the network.

Reliability in 2018 was plagued by a number of problems in addition to the timetable changes, including extreme weather, strikes and signalling failures.

Transpennine Express, which runs services across the North, with York among the destinations, had the highest cancellation rate as a proportion of its total services, at 10 per cent, out of 13 franchises analysed by Which?.

Joint figures for London North Eastern Railway, which also runs services to and from York, and its predecessor Virgin Trains East Coast, show they had the highest rate of significantly delayed trains last year at five per cent.

Which? claimed the poor performance - coupled with its research that 36 per cent of passengers do not claim delay compensation when eligible to - demonstrates the need for payouts to be made automatically.

Robert Nisbet, regional director of industry body the Rail Delivery Group, said: "We know that services on some routes weren't good enough last year and rail companies are working together to improve punctuality and tackle delays across the country.

"Train companies want to make it simple and easy for customers to claim compensation if they've experienced a delay.

"Half of the franchises managed by the Department for Transport pay compensation after 15 minutes and some operators have introduced automatic refunds, helping claims to increase by 80% over the last two years."