NINE OUT OF TEN TRAINS RAN ON TIME DESPITE ROUGH PERIOD IN WALES: Snow on the railway

Wednesday 20 Jan 2010

NINE OUT OF TEN TRAINS RAN ON TIME DESPITE ROUGH PERIOD IN WALES

Region & Route:
| Wales & Western: Wales & Borders
| Wales & Western

Snowmen checking points heaters  


Nine out of 10 trains still ran to time in Wales, despite a tough month of severe weather and industrial action in the region.

The figure was released today in Network Rail's latest national monthly report on train performance that, during the four weeks from 13 December to 9 January, saw 90.4% of services in Wales arriving on time. 

This puts Arriva Train Wales, the main rail operator in Wales, among the top three train operating companies with the highest record of punctuality last month. 

While punctuality did drop slightly during the extreme cold snap compared to performance last year, the underlying performance remains at record level with 94.8% of services arriving on-time on average over the past 12 months.

Chris Rayner, western route director for Network Rail, said: “It's been a difficult month, possibly one of the toughest periods, as we come face to face with different challenges and work against mother nature.  Despite all, we managed to ride out the rough period and kept the railways open, by being extremely prepared and working closely with colleagues from Arriva Train Wales and First Great Western.  Most services ran with nine out of 10 services running to time last month, but we are not resting on our laurels and will continue to keep punctuality records high in Wales."

Network Rail and the train operators worked tirelessly over the past few weeks to keep the railways open.   Hundreds of workers – also known as ‘snowmen’ - were deployed overnight across Wales to keep the railway clear of ice and snow and snow ploughs were sent out to tackle the freezing conditions and keep all the main routes open.

Period 10 of 2009/10 – 13 December to 09 January 2010

Franchise

Punctuality P10

2009

Punctuality P10

2008

Moving Annual Average (MAA)

c2c Rail

94.60%

95.60%

96.20%

Merseyrail

92.50%

93.20%

96.20%

Arriva Trains Wales

90.40%

93.50%

94.80%

East Midlands Trains

89.70%

89.20%

92.30%

Chiltern

89.40%

95.80%

95.40%

London Overground

88.90%

92.80%

92.60%

First Great Western

85.90%

91.90%

92.10%

London Midland

83.40%

78.90%

88.50%

South West Trains

82.20%

93.80%

92.80%

Northern Rail

82.10%

85.50%

91.60%

National Express East Anglia

78.50%

92.00%

90.80%

Southern

77.80%

88.90%

89.80%

Crosscountry

77.00%

87.50%

90.50%

First Transpennine Express

75.70%

90.50%

92.00%

First Scotrail

72.90%

88.90%

90.30%

First Capital Connect

72.80%

93.00%

89.40%

Southeastern

70.00%

91.70%

89.60%

East Coast

67.20%

88.40%

87.50%

Virgin Trains

65.70%

75.70%

82.60%

National

80.00%

89.80%

91.10%

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

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 - 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

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