Friday 26 Nov 2010
TRAIN PERFORMANCE DIPS IN OCTOBER
- Region & Route:
- National
Train performance in October saw a marked dip for Britain's train services. Network Rail today released the latest train performance results which saw 86.3% of trains arriving on time compared with 90.3% for the same period last year.
Period eight (17 October to 13 November) is the first full month of the difficult autumn period that historically sees train performance fall. Average train punctuality for period eight over the last ten years has been 77.6%.
Robin Gisby, director of operations and customer services, said: “The railway has made great strides in reducing the impact of the autumn weather over the past decade, but the start of this year's has been difficult resulting in disappointing train punctuality.
"The industry has invested heavily, some £30m, in technology and techniques targeted at lessening the impact of autumn. We aim to deliver much better performance in the weeks ahead."
18 of the 19 operators saw their performance drop compared to the same period last year. London Overground was the most punctual operator during the period with 94.0% of trains on time. 10 operators saw significant movement in their performance (over three percentage points):
P8 2010 | P8 2009 | % point change | |
Southern | 83.1% | 89.7% | -6.6 |
Northern Rail | 81.8% | 87.4% | -5.6 |
National Express East Anglia | 86.7% | 92.2% | -5.5 |
c2c | 92.7% | 98.0% | -5.3 |
Southeastern | 83.3% | 88.1% | -4.8 |
Chiltern | 91.5% | 95.9% | -4.4 |
First Transpennine Express | 86.9% | 91.3% | -4.4 |
CrossCountry | 84.9% | 89.1% | -4.2 |
First Great Western | 86.6% | 90.3% | -3.7 |
First Capital Connect | 83.3% | 86.8% | -3.5 |
Notes to editors
- 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
- 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
- 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
- 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 8 of 2010/11 - 17 October to 13 November 2010
Franchise | Punctuality P8 2010 | Punctuality P8 2009 | Moving Annual Average (MAA) |
Arriva Trains Wales | 91.6% | 94.4% | 94.8% |
c2c Rail | 92.7% | 98.0% | 96.3% |
Chiltern | 91.5% | 95.9% | 94.7% |
Crosscountry | 84.3% | 89.1% | 89.4% |
East Coast | 84.9% | 87.9% | 85.5% |
East Midlands Trains | 89.1% | 90.6% | 93.0% |
First Capital Connect | 83.3% | 86.8% | 89.0% |
First Great Western | 86.6% | 90.3% | 91.3% |
First Scotrail | 86.9% | 89.6% | 91.2% |
First Transpennine Express | 86.9% | 91.3% | 91.4% |
London Midland | 85.4% | 87.9% | 90.7% |
London Overground | 94.5% | 92.7% | 94.3% |
Merseyrail | 94.0% | 96.4% | 95.8% |
National Express East Anglia | 86.7% | 92.2% | 90.5% |
Northern Rail | 81.8% | 87.4% | 91.1% |
Southeastern | 83.3% | 88.1% | 88.5% |
Southern | 83.1% | 89.7% | 90.1% |
South West Trains | 89.7% | 92.3% | 93.0% |
Virgin Trains | 85.5% | 87.8% | 86.6% |
National | 86.3% | 90.3% | 91.2% |
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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