Avanti West Coast ‘UK’S least reliable train operator’

A NEW study has revealed Britain’s least reliable train operators, with Avanti West Coast taking the top spot. It will come as no surprise to passengers in North Wales who are regularly affected by delays and cancellations on routes to London.

This led to calls for Avanti to have the franchise stripped from them. But instead UK Government rewarded the company with a new contract last September for potentially up to nine years.

Travel deal site Tripplo, analysed data from the Office of Rail and Road between January 2021 and September 2023, to find the percentage of train journeys that were either cancelled or delayed by 15 minutes or more from different rail operators.

Avanti West Coast were found to have a massive 15.36% of their trains cancelled or delayed - working out to just over one in six trains not arriving when expected. These delays amounted to 1,289,833 minutes of delays, or in other words, passengers using the operator lost a total of 895 days of journey time because of delays. Transport for Wales were eighth on the list with 7.44% cancelled or delayed for more than 15 minutes.

An Avanti West Spokesperson said: “We would like to apologise to our customers who have been affected in recent months. The service has been below expectations on some days for a variety of reasons including driver unavailability due to historic leave policies as well as elevated sickness levels. We have also been impacted by issues during this time with infrastructure and weather-related challenges on the network, meaning we had to cancel an increased number of services. This has had a bearing on our previously improved levels of performance.”

Axel Hernborg, founder of Tripplo, said: “The findings offer a glimpse into the state of the nation’s rail services. Across the nation, there’s a noticeable variation in performance, with some operators, such as Avanti West Coast, consistently underperforming.

“This variability in findings perhaps highlights the complexity of maintaining a cohesive rail network while emphasising the necessity for ongoing evaluation, strategic planning, and investment to bolster reliability standards and enhance the overall passenger experience. It’s no secret that the UK’S rail network is a far shout from those within mainland Europe in terms of efficiency and reliability, and these findings simply underscore that.”