BRITAIN'S TRAINS SET NEW RECORD FOR PUNCTUALITY (ANGLIA)

Monday 7 Sep 2009

BRITAIN'S TRAINS SET NEW RECORD FOR PUNCTUALITY (ANGLIA)

Region & Route:: Eastern: Anglia; | Eastern

BRITAIN'S TRAINS SET NEW RECORD FOR PUNCTUALITY

August saw 94.0% of Britain's trains arrive on time. The average over the past twelve months also reached new high levels with 91.1% of trains running to time - the first time in recorded history that the 91% mark has been beaten.

In its regular monthly performance update, Network Rail announced that period five (26 July to 22 August) proved to be another record month.

Robin Gisby, director of operations and customer service, said: "Passengers expect their trains to be on time, a basic part of our service that is being delivered. Their priorities are changing but the rail industry recognises that punctuality will always be key and we will continue to work hard to deliver even higher levels of performance."

In all 18 of the 19 operators saw their performance improve compared to the same period last year, with the region's main operator National Express East Anglia jumping almost two percentage points from 92% to 93.7%. Record-breaking c2c, which achieved the best 12-month performance ever recorded earlier this year, saw train punctuality climb from 95.3% to 96.8%.

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 - 50% 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

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