Wednesday 11 Aug 2010
MERSEYRAIL ON TOP IN TRAIN PERFORMANCE LEAGUE
- Region & Route:
Performance figures released today by Network Rail show that again Merseyrail has beaten every other train operator in the country for the four-week period 27 June to 24 July, with 96.2% of services on time. South West Trains came second with 95.9% and Arriva Trains Wales was third with 95.8%.
Wayne Menzies, Network Rail’s area manager, Merseyside, said: “Merseyrail has consistently been up with the best for several months and now they have rightly come out on top again.
“This is really good news for everyone who uses Merseyrail’s services but it does not just happen overnight. It takes persistent hard work by both Merseyrail and our own people to be the best in the country.”
- Network Rail has a dedicated management team sharing offices with Merseyrail, making decision taking a far quicker process. It also has a maintenance depot that is dedicated solely to the Merseyrail network.
- The two companies devise joint performance improvement plans that focus on the parts of the network which need extra attention to improve performance further.
- There is a programme of renewals and enhancements to improve the reliability of the track and equipment, and ever improving maintenance of the trains to improve their reliability.
- Daily conference calls involving Network Rail, its maintenance team, Merseyrail and the British Transport Police review everything that happened in the previous 24 hours to evaluate the way particular incidents were handled.
Bart Schmeink, Merseyrail's managing director said: "Merseyrail now consistently has levels of punctuality and reliability that were thought to be impossible to achieve only a few years ago. Repeating these levels month after month is what passengers expect from us and we are determined to do exactly that."
The figures were released in Network Rail's regular monthly report on train performance.
In all, eight of the 19 operators saw their performance improve compared to the same period last year, with First Scotrail seeing the biggest improvement (up to 94.8% from 92% last year). The rest saw marginal movements in performance.
Notes to editors
1) 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
2) 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
3) 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
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
Period 4 of 2010/11 - 27 June to 24 July 2010
Franchise
Punctuality P4
2010
Punctuality P4
2009
Moving Annual Average (MAA)
Arriva Trains Wales
95.8%
95.0%
95.0%
c2c Rail
92.1%
95.2%
96.4%
Chiltern
93.6%
93.8%
95.2%
Crosscountry
92.7%
90.0%
89.9%
East Coast
84.7%
86.4%
86.5%
East Midlands Trains
94.2%
92.7%
92.9%
First Capital Connect
89.4%
90.9%
89.2%
First Great Western
91.2%
92.6%
92.0%
First Scotrail
94.8%
92.0%
91.2%
First Transpennine Express
92.8%
93.1%
92.3%
London Midland
92.7%
90.1%
90.6%
London Overground
94.2%
93.9%
93.7%
Merseyrail
96.2%
96.5%
96.2%
National Express East Anglia
88.9%
90.8%
90.8%
Northern Rail
93.4%
93.5%
91.5%
Southeastern
91.6%
92.5%
89.2%
Southern
91.3%
92.2%
90.6%
South West Trains
95.9%
94.1%
93.2%
Virgin Trains
89.1%
86.4%
86.5%
National
92.6%
92.4%
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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