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Friday 24 Jun 2005

NETWORK RAIL WELCOMES IMPROVED TRAIN PERFORMANCE AS IT CONTINUES ITS DRIVE FOR FURTHER IMPROVEMENTS

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National

Network Rail today welcomed the publication by the SRA of the railway’s annual performance league tables - National Rail Trends. The year has been one of substantial progress and overall good news for passengers as train performance reached five year highs. Chief Executive, John Armitt, said: “Delivering a better service for our customers and passengers is what we’re here to do and I’m extremely pleased that our 30,000 employees have played a significant part in making that happen over the past year.” The report shows that passengers enjoyed a significantly improved rail service during quarter four 2004/5, with punctuality increasing from 83.1% to 86.2%.  Performance has also seen welcome improvement over the entire year with 83.6% of services running on time in 2004/5 compared with 81.2% in the previous year. Network Rail continues to drive the rail industry’s efforts to deliver a safe, reliable, and efficient railway.  Last year, Network Rail’s contribution to improving the railway for the one billion passenger journeys that took place included: ·         Reduction in delays of 2.3 million minutes to 11.4m minutes, a fall of 17% - beating the independent rail regulator’s target of 12.3m minutes ·         Train punctuality improved to a four-year high, rising to 83.6% of trains on time compared to 81.2% in 2003/4 – beating the rail regulator’s target of 82.8% ·         Further safety improvements, with broken rails, signals passed at danger and significant train accidents all at lowest ever levels ·         Substantial efficiency savings achieved The significant out performance of the rail regulator’s stretching targets occurred despite huge upheaval and reorganisation as a result of Network Rail’s decision to bring rail maintenance back in-house.  Other initiatives which helped improve the performance of the railway included setting up Integrated Control Centres, which bring together operations staff from different rail companies under the leadership of a Network Rail ‘fat controller’.  Integrated Control Centres play a key role in service recovery following incidents. John Armitt continued: “Tough targets have been met and these figures show real, sustainable progress in the performance of the railway.  What’s more, we improved punctuality at the same time as undertaking immense internal change as we brought 15,000 maintenance workers back in-house. These were hard won improvements, which are a tribute to our employees – there were no ‘quick wins’.  “We are working ever more closely with the train operators to improve the service for rail users, both passengers and freight.  The return of the ‘fat controller’ in Integrated Control Centres is ensuring a rapid reduction in delays per incident. “There is still a need to further improve passengers’ travelling experience.  That’s why we have raised the bar on performance and committed Network Rail to achieving an additional reduction in delays minutes each year, every year for the next four years.  We are ambitious for the railway and are determined to reduce delays by an extra 3.6 million minutes, over and above the already demanding targets set by the Rail Regulator.”