Long-suffering rail commuters have received some good news - Kent's rail operator is promising 3,500 more seats on some of its busiest services.

The announcement came just days after official government figures indicated more than 100,000 rail commuters from different regions into London have to stand in the busiest times of the morning rush hour on a typical day.

Southeastern, which fared better than many other operators in the Department for Transport survey, says 24 services running from Kent into London at peak hours will benefit but has not yet identified them all.

However, the operator said it expected services from Strood, Rochester, Gravesened and Sevenoaks would be among them.

The pledge of extra seats has come about because improvements to stations in the south east 'Metro' area means Southeastern will be able to run longer trains with more carriages on some services.

Richard Dean, train services director for Southeastern said: "We've been working closely with Network Rail on a major programme of works to increase the capacity of our growing network.

"Network Rail is in the final stages of a project to lengthen train platforms and upgrade the
track power supply within the south east London 'Metro' area to enable us to run up to 24 longer trains next year. This will provide around 3,500 more seats for our passengers."

Southeastern was facing the challenge of rising demand among commuters as record numbers were using the train to travel to and from work on the 2,000 trains it ran daily, he added.

Mike Smith, Network Rail's route enhancement manager for Kent, said: "The number of passengers travelling by train continues to grow year-on-year. To accommodate this growth in demand, we are investing in and improving the network to provide an increase in capacity in Kent.

"Part of this involves lengthening platforms and carrying out resignalling and power upgrades which will allow Southeastern to run longer trains on some of their busiest services."

The extra seats will be added to services from next January.