Wednesday 14 Jul 2010
FOUR IN A ROW FOR VIRGIN TRAINS
- Region & Route:
Virgin Trains has made it four months in a row as most improved train operator, according to figures released today (14 July) by Network Rail.
The long distance train operator, which provides services on the west coast route between London and the West Midlands, Liverpool, Manchester, North West England and Scotland improved its performance in June by 8.1% compared to the same period last year.
Robin Gisby, Network Rail's director of operations and customer services, said: "The figures speak for themselves and confirm that the west coast is no longer the problem route people believe it to be.
"However, we can never let up on delivering good train performance, because passengers tell us this is the single most important thing to them, and it's our job - working in partnership with train operators - to deliver."
Elsewhere in the country, train operator c2c, which runs commuter services from London Fenchurch Street, topped the train performance league this month with 97% of services on time in June, narrowly beating Merseyrail (96.2%) and Arriva Trains Wales (95.1%).
The figures were released in Network Rail's regular monthly report on train performance. During the period from 30 May to 26 June, 93% of services arrived on time. This compares to 93.1% in same period last year.
In all, 10 of the 19 operators saw their performance improve compared to the same period last year, with Virgin Trains seeing the biggest improvement. The rest saw marginal movements in performance.
Notes to editors
1) First Great Western services delivered almost 91% of trains on time but this was below a particularly good June result last year. The main causes of delay on this route over the month were due to an act of vandalism near Slough, a medical emergency outside Paddington and a loss of power to telecommunications equipment near Didcot
2) Arrived on time - the measure of train punctuality also known as PPM (public performance measure) means trains arriving at their destinations within five minutes for commuter services and within 10 minutes for long distance services. This measure of punctuality is commonly used throughout Europe
3) National train punctuality is measured for all trains across the whole of each, 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
4) These figures represent provisional data for the period and individual operators' performance data may vary slightly from the full period performance report that Network Rail publishes on its website every month
5) 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
Period 3 of 2010/11 - 30 May to 26 June 2010
Franchise | Punctuality P3 2010 | Punctuality P3 2009 | Moving Annual Average (MAA) |
Arriva Trains Wales | 95.1% | 93.9% | 95.0% |
c2c Rail | 97.0% | 96.4% | 96.7% |
Chiltern | 94.3% | 95.0% | 95.2% |
Crosscountry | 90.8% | 91.3% | 89.6% |
East Coast | 87.7% | 89.1% | 86.6% |
East Midlands Trains | 94.4% | 91.5% | 92.8% |
First Capital Connect | 90.4% | 93.1% | 89.3% |
First Great Western | 90.8% | 93.9% | 92.1% |
First Scotrail | 94.7% | 92.5% | 90.9% |
First Transpennine Express | 94.5% | 91.5% | 92.3% |
London Midland | 91.9% | 88.9% | 90.4% |
London Overground | 94.4% | 92.1% | 93.6% |
Merseyrail | 96.2% | 95.9% | 96.3% |
National Express East Anglia | 90.6% | 92.2% | 90.9% |
Northern Rail | 93.7% | 92.7% | 91.5% |
Southeastern | 92.2% | 93.4% | 89.2% |
Southern | 92.2% | 95.2% | 90.7% |
South West Trains | 94.8% | 95.3% | 93.1% |
Virgin Trains | 90.4% | 82.3% | 86.3% |
| |||
National | 93.0% | 93.1% | 91.5% |
PPM
PPM is a % measure of passenger trains arriving ‘on time’ at their scheduled destination. For long distance trains ‘on time’ is within 10 minutes of the timetabled arrival time, for all others it is within 5 minutes.
Heathrow Express, Grand Central, Hull Trains, Eurostar and Wrexham and Shropshire are not included in the National PPM.
MAA
Moving annual average
Note: The data contained within this report is for initial indications only and is subject to change in subsequent publications |
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