The Office of Rail and Road has today written to Avanti calling for significant improvements to its recovery plan for releasing timetables to passengers ahead of travel.
Despite Avanti initially making reasonable progress against their September 2022 plan and increasing notice for passengers to book travel in the lead up to Christmas, the position has deteriorated in 2023.
For weekends in January, passengers have only been able to book tickets at a few days’ notice.
Avanti’s current plans for February show a better picture for weekday travel, but still fall short of passengers’ needs for weekend journeys.
Under Avanti’s passenger information licence requirement, ORR has asked Avanti to submit an improved recovery plan for timetable production by 2 February 2023.
Stephanie Tobyn, Director of Strategy, Policy and Reform at ORR said:
“Passengers are rightly frustrated that this situation has deteriorated so quickly after a steady start to the recovery plan late last year.
“By 2 February we expect Avanti to identify what has gone wrong and set out how it intends to get back to releasing timetables in normal industry timescales so that passengers can plan and book journeys with greater confidence”.
“Failure to produce an acceptable plan or to deliver improvements may lead to more formal measures.”
