Tuesday 24 Nov 2009
BEST AUTUMN MONTH ON RECORD
- Region & Route:
- National
The first month of the difficult autumnal period has seen record performance for Britain's trains as Network Rail today released the latest train performance results which saw 90.2% of trains arriving on time.
Period eight (18 October to 14 November) is the start of the difficult autumn period that sees train service punctuality traditionally fall by up to five percentage points as trains have to cope with the railways equivalent of black-ice, compacted leaf mulch. This period saw the first autumnal month ever to see trains maintain performance above 90%.
Robin Gisby, director of operations and customer service, said: “To deliver an even better service for passengers we have to deliver consistently across the year. Today's results are encouraging and are the result of the industry investing heavily in technology and techniques to lessen the impact of autumn."
In all 17 of the 19 operators saw their performance improve compared to the same period last year. First Transpennine Express saw the biggest improvement in performance this month compared to the same period last year. Nine operators saw significant movement in their performance (over three percentage points):
| P8 2009 | P8 2008 | % point change | |
| First Transpennine Express | 91.3% | 83.1% | +8.2 |
| East Midlands Trains | 90.6% | 83.5% | +7.1 |
| National Express East Coast | 87.9% | 82.3% | +5.6 |
| Merseyrail | 96.4% | 92.0% | +4.4 |
| National Express East Anglia | 92.2% | 88.3% | +3.9 |
| London Midland | 87.9% | 84.2% | +3.7 |
| First Scotrail | 89.6% | 86.0% | +3.6 |
| Northern Rail | 87.4% | 83.9% | +3.5 |
| Virgin Trains | 87.8% | 84.6% | +3.2 |
Notes to editors
1) Arrived on time - the measure of train punctuality also know as PPM (public performance measure) means trains arriving at their destinations within five minutes for commuter services and within 10 for long distance services. This measure of punctuality is commonly used throughout Europe
2) National train punctuality is measured for all trains across every day, including cancelled services and delays caused by external factors (such as vandalism, extreme weather, suicides etc). Punctuality did not start to be recorded in this vigorous and thorough way until 1997. Before then Railtrack, and BR before it, did not measure all services and also excluded external factors and other items from their numbers
3) These figures represent provisional data for the period and individuals operators performance data may vary slightly from the full period performance report that Network rail publishes on its website around one month after period end
4) Network Rail and the train operators run more trains across Great Britain than are run in most European countries - almost 20% more than in France and 60% more than in Italy. Great Britain's 24,000 trains per-day is also more than Spain, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Portugal and Norway combined
5) The autumn period (October to December) is the most difficult for rail services across the globe. While car drivers will take extra care and allow extra time for travel during the depths of a cold winter, train drivers must take more time to slow down and accelerate away from stations or risk slipping and sliding on compacted leaf mulch that makes the rail head as slippery as black-ice on the roads. The rail industry invests tens of £millions every year in tackling this annual problem using new, modern techniques such as very high pressure water cannons mounted on trains to blast the leaf mulch off the rail and computer driver simulations to help train drivers with special techniques. Employing such techniques and technology has seen delays caused by such conditions reduce each year
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