Next time someone says (or you read) "Britain has the highest rail fares in Europe", you'll know this is only 15% of the story. The other 85% is that we have similar or even cheaper fares, too.
The big picture is that Britain has the most commercially aggressive fares in Europe, with the highest fares designed to get maximum revenue from business travel, and some of the lowest fares designed to get more revenue by filling more seats. This is exactly what airlines have known, and been doing, for decades.
https://www.seat61.com/uk-europe-train-fares-comparison.html
As the article also says 'Commuter/short distance fares are largely subsidized, and broadly-speaking it's a political choice between higher taxation, higher subsidy, lower fares, and lower taxation, lower subsidy and higher fares, which we Brits have tended to make lower down the tax/subsidy range and higher up the fare price range than other countries, for better or for worse.'
So putting it in simplistic terms 'should a highly paid city worker pay for his season ticket or should it be heavily subsidised by a low earning tax payer who never goes near London'?