Fewer than half of rail commuters in Great Britain think their train fare is value for money, a national passenger survey has found.

Travellers on the CrossCountry long-distance rail service were the least satisfied overall, according to the research by the passenger watchdog Transport Focus.

The findings came alongside news that passenger journey numbers had reached a record high of 1.83bn in the last year, surpassing pre-pandemic levels for the first time.

Transport Focus said that while most passengers were happy with their journey, there was a “striking gap” between the best and the worst train operators.

Only 49% of commuters were satisfied with the fare they paid, compared with 67% of leisure travellers who regarded it as providing value for money.

Of more than 100,000 passengers questioned immediately after their journey, 87% were satisfied with their overall experience. That fell to 79% for CrossCountry customers, with the majority dissatisfied with how the train operator had dealt with delays.

CrossCountry runs long-distance trains on several routes from southern England to the north and Scotland via Birmingham. Transport Focus has urged it to improve passenger information during disruption and tackle overcrowding on services.

The Arriva-run operator said the results were “disappointing” but added: “We know we must do more to deliver the service our customers rightly deserve.”

CrossCountry is expected to be brought into public ownership next year, as the government concludes a programme of nationalisation and rail changes. Train operators and Network Rail will be integrated into a new Great British Railways, run as an arm’s-length national body reporting to the government.

Alex Robertson, the chief executive of Transport Focus, said: “These results show that it’s possible for the railway to get it right, but that this isn’t happening consistently enough. The gap between the worst and best performing operators is striking, and it also shows that disabled passengers are experiencing a worse service than everyone else.”

He said the survey showed how big a difference the handling of delays made to customer sentiment: “More than nine in 10 people will report a positive experience if a delay is handled well – a remarkably high figure given their train is late – but this falls to one in four when it isn’t. Fixing this is well within the railway’s control and should be a priority.”

Hull Trains passengers were the most satisfied with their journey at 94%, closely followed by LNER with 93%, while Lumo polled best value for money. Hull and Lumo are both open access services run independently of the Department for Transport by FirstGroup, whose chief executive is Graham Sutherland.

He said: “We’ve clearly demonstrated on the east coast mainline that having effective competition there has driven more volumes and more sustainable transport, and brought real value to customers.”

The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) said passengers made 1.83bn journeys on the railway in the 12 months to the end of March, up 6% on last year.

But about one in seven journeys were on the Elizabeth line, while the ORR said that an increasing use of split ticketing – dividing up longer journeys into several legs to exploit ticketing anomalies for cheaper fares – was also inflating the figures.

It meant the that rail fare revenuewas £12.3bn, which was still £1bn less than the pre-pandemic totals.