Oxford Mail: Commuter Dominic Utton welcomed the review.

1. The trains It sounds obvious but… the trains are old. They are slow. They frequently “fail” (break down). There are often not enough carriages. Better trains would make for better journeys.

2. The cost The price of a monthly season ticket between Oxford and London is now more than £500 – and has risen by at least the cost of inflation every year for the last decade. Meaning more of your wage is spent each year just getting to work.

3. The food Don’t eat the food. Seriously.

4. The toilets Also – don’t use the toilets. Not unless you really REALLY have to.

5. The bicycles On the two-or-three-carriage “chugger” trains, there is no dedicated space for bicycles. Meaning that bicycles often take up space that could be otherwise used by humans. Bicycles that did not purchase the tickets that said humans had to shell out for.

6. The doublespeak According to First Great Western, “on time” means anything up to 10 minutes late. And “reliable” means the train turned up at all, regardless of how late it is. So don’t believe the tosh you read on their posters about punctuality and reliability rates.

7. The timetables Let’s just say they exist more as an ideal, rather than a reliable indicator of when your train might actually arrive.

8. Reading No, not as in books (that’s about the only thing that makes it bearable) – but Reading, as in the train station. The train station that, thanks to extensive “updating”, keeps every single train passing through it waiting either side of it for 20 minutes.

9. The other people Or specifically, all the other people on the same train as you. Sitting, standing in the aisles, crammed in the vestibules, hanging from the luggage racks, squeezed into every available space. It can all get a bit too… intimate.

10. The existential despair “I wasted time,” said Shakespeare’s Richard II, “and now doth time waste me.” Your average commuter can relate to that.