64.7 per cent of train services were on time in 2018

Wednesday, September 25, 2019

 A new performance measurement revealed that more than a third of British rail services failed to reach stations on time over the past year.

Trains are considered punctual if they arrive within a minute of the timetable from the previous limit of up to 10 minutes under the toughened standards.

In the last 12 months to the end of June under the changed regime only 64.75 of services were on time and this figure was described by the passenger watchdog Transport Focus as ‘unacceptable’.

According to the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) figures tougher rail performance measurements show fewer than two-thirds of scheduled stops at stations were made on time.

The transport secretary, Grant Shapps, said the new way of measuring punctuality would will not  mask whether trains are really on time.

It was reported that Hull Trains had the worst punctuality record at 36.8%, followed by TransPennine Express (38.7%) and the London North Eastern Railway (41%). The best punctuality was set by the London-to-Essex franchise c2c (83.2%).

Punctuality is recorded at every stop on a train’s route as per the  revised standards. Earlier the performance was based on when a train reached its final destination.

In July 2017 the rail industry started to use the new measurements  but it only became the primary assessment in April this year.

The figure of 64.7% for the 12 months to the end of June represents a year-on-year improvement of 2.5%.

Shapps mentioned that commuters just want their trains to run on time and that’s his first priority. New statistics published today will stop masking whether trains are really on time.

He felt that this is a step in the right direction, providing more accountability and transparency to help hold operators to account, but much more needs to be done to get performance to where it should be.

Anthony Smith, the chief executive of the Transport Focus watchdog, said passengers’ biggest priority was punctuality and clearly one third of trains running late is not acceptable.

The industry’s current call for the figures to reflect actual arrival times rather than allowing trains up to 10 minutes late to count as ‘on time’ will help in rebuilding trust in the railway.

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