The number of trains arriving at station stops early or less than one minute after the scheduled time has gradually worsened throughout the year according to the Office of the Rail regulator.
In the latest quarter, only 62.3% of station stops were arrived at on time. This is 5.4% worse than the same period the year before (though still 2.9% higher than same quarter pre-pandemic, in 2019).
Pressure on the industry from industrial action continued this quarter, with 10 national strike days. There was some severe weather which also impacted performance.
A quarter of the days (23 days) were classified as ‘severely disrupted’. Of the 4.5% of cancelled trains, around half (51.6%) had responsibility attributed to train operators, 27.1% to infrastructure and network issues, while the remainder were due to external incidents such as severe weather or incidents such as a passenger falling ill on a train.
ORR cancellations statistics show that Avanti West Coast (10.5%), CrossCountry (10.3%), TransPennine Express (7.7%), GTR (6.5%), and LNER (5.6%) cancelled the most trains on the day (excluding ‘P-coded’ pre-cancellations, where applicable) and Chiltern, Greater Anglia and c2c the fewest.
Avanti West Coast, CrossCountry and TransPennine Express also recorded the lowest On Time scores of all franchised train operators.
Under pressure TransPennine Express cancelled 1,781 services in a four-week period represent almost a quarter of their trains and 10% of all train cancellations in England and Wales, despite the company only running less than 2% of all services.
West Yorkshire Mayor Tracey Brabin whose office calculated the figures,said today:
“This is shocking and the government must hear our calls, finally get a grip and bring this situation under control.“
A fully-functioning public transport network is crucial to our plans to boost the economy, achieve our climate ambitions and provide people with the opportunity to get on in life. Without action people will lose jobs, our youngsters will miss vital opportunities, and the Northern economy will go off the rails.”
