Bradford has the worst rail connections of any British city - with the rest of the bottom six all in the North or Midlands, a new study has found.
Researchers analysed more than 3,000 real-life train journeys between Britain's 20 largest urban centres, and found London was the best connected while four out of the remaining top six are all in the south or Scotland.
The top six cities for connectivity - in descending order after the capital - were Edinburgh, Newcastle, Birmingham, Glasgow and Brighton. The bottom six were Bradford, Nottingham, Hull, Coventry, Liverpool and Leicester.
The rankings - compiled by the People, Places, Policy and Data Unit - were based on the number of services available to other cities and the speed of the links. Both are crucial statistics for determining the ease of commuting.
Researchers analysed more than 3,000 real-life train journeys between Britain's 20 largest urban centres
Today MPs said the findings proved the urgent need to improve rail services in the regions if the government is to achieve its levelling up ambitions.
It comes ahead of the publication of the Government's Integrated Rail Plan, which will set out how HS2 and two other projects dubbed Northern Powerhouse Rail and Midlands Engine will improve services outside London.
The study used route plans from Google Maps to calculate the speed, in miles per hour, that someone would have to drive to keep pace with inter-city train services on journeys between major cities.
Bradford - despite being Britain's seventh biggest city, and enjoying a central position on the UK map - finished bottom of the pile due to a lack of direct routes and slow connections on its underinvested lines.
It has just four direct trains to London per day.
In the case of journeys from Leeds, Sheffield, Liverpool, Nottingham, Stoke, someone driving to Bradford could keep pace with 'fast' early-morning train services by travelling at less than 40mph.
Northern leaders have been lobbying for the Northern Powerhouse Rail route to go through Bradford to slash journey times to Manchester by two-thirds to 20 minutes and to Leeds by more than half to ten minutes.
Analysis by global infrastructure consultants Arup found that the station
