The number of cars and trucks using the shuttle trains running through the Channel Tunnel has dived dramatically, leading to a collapse in revenues at Eurotunnel.

The news is particularly galling for chairman and chief executive Jacques Gounon, who has spent much of the past three years rescuing Eurotunnel from bankruptcy and getting banks and investors to write off much of the company's former £6 billion debt mountain.

The restructured Eurotunnel, in which a small rump of British private investors still hold shares and free travel concessions, today reported an 18% slump in the number of cars using the shuttles in the first half of the year.

For trucks, the figures are far worse: a staggering 53% drop meaning 400,000 trucks have gone missing this year, either defecting to the ferries or not travelling at all because of the economic downturn.

Those figures have sent Eurotunnel's revenues tumbling by 28% to €266 million (£229 million) in the six months.

Gounon said it is not just the recession which is hurting Eurotunnel.

The fire which closed the tunnel in September affected access through to February. Road hauliers therefore signed contracts to get their loads to and from Britain and the continent with the ferries and Gounon said those customers will not come back until the agreements, normally signed for a year, are up for renewal.