MARCH'S TRAIN PERFORMANCE AT 93%: c2c train

Thursday 14 Apr 2011

MARCH'S TRAIN PERFORMANCE AT 93%

Region & Route:
National

Train operator c2c – which runs services between London and Essex – saw 97.4% of its trains arrive on time in March making it Britain's most punctual operator for the month.

Overall, across the country, train punctuality for the month reached 92.9%, slightly down on last year's 93.5%, but still the second best for the period on record. The month, period 13 ran from 6 March to 31 March.

Year end performance data for the French railways for the past year (January 2010 to December 2010) has also recently been published. It reports intercity punctuality, including its high speed TGV lines of 80.6%, while commuter and regional services averaged 90.3% for the year**

Robin Gisby, director of operations and customer services, said: "We have had a strong end to the year with good levels of punctuality yet there is more to do, especially on improving performance for long distance services.”

East Coast has seen punctuality jump almost a three percentage points compared to last month as the operator has successfully reduced its delays and driven up the performance of its train fleet to the best in class. Network Rail is working hard on improving the reliability of its infrastructure on the East Coast Main Line and on managing those external factors, such as cable theft, that have such a big impact on train performance.

Notes to editors

1. ** France measures the punctuality of its trains slightly differently with services with journeys under 90 minutes considered on time if arriving within five minutes. For journeys between 90 and 180 minutes measured within 10 minutes and those journeys over 180 minutes measured within 15 minutes.

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 network, 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 13 of 2010/11 – 6 to 31 March 2011

Franchise

Punctuality

P13, 2010/11

Punctuality P13, 2009/10

Moving Annual Average (MAA)

Arriva Trains Wales

93.5%

95.7%

93.9%

c2c Rail

97.4%

97.5%

94.8%

Chiltern

92.7%

96.2%

94.0%

Crosscountry

90.5%

89.2%

88.2%

East Coast

85.6%

87.0%

83.3%

East Midlands Trains

94.5%

93.8%

92.1%

First Capital Connect

92.7%

92.6%

89.3%

First Great Western

93.0%

94.7%

90.3%

First Scotrail

92.0%

92.5%

90.1%

First Transpennine Express

94.3%

94.3%

91.1%

London Midland

88.5%

92.5%

89.7%

London Overground

96.7%

96.4%

94.8%

Merseyrail

95.7%

96.9%

94.9%

National Express East Anglia

92.0%

91.5%

90.2%

Northern Rail

93.6%

93.5%

90.8%

Southeastern

93.3%

91.8%

88.9%

Southern

92.1%

94.0%

89.6%

South West Trains

94.8%

95.0%

93.7%

Virgin Trains

90.6%

91.0%

86.6%

National

92.9%

93.5%

90.8%

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 and Eurostar 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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